Ah, that makes sense. I was thinking that in America you would need a particularly good job to be a single income family. I know later on she has a job teaching at the dance studio from listening to episodes starting around 280 so I was surprised to go back and find they moved over on a single income.
I can’t remember if you are American, and what age Utaco was when moving over, but I definitely knew people in college who went to America on J1s etc. from Ireland who had an image of California as “parties on the beach” and “weed in SF”.
I think maybe it’s a bit less prevalent now, mostly due to the show that American politics has put on for the rest of the world and increased visibility of the tech industry, but it’s surprisingly common.
Yeah, I’m American. Here there’s an idea that California is more laid back but not to the extent of like, “over there everyone just parties on the beach all day,” haha. Just to the extent of how any place might have a slightly different vibe/lifestyle. That’s interesting on overseas attitude towards California, thanks! It explains more why Utaco might have thought that way.
Based on later episodes, her husband’s job is elementary school teacher.
Huh, I assumed he worked in tech, that’s interesting. Elementary school teachers tend to be a low salary job in America, but maybe he has a better position than I’m imagining, like at a private school.
I thought the wrapping paper thing was interesting I didn’t know that was a cultural difference. For me I just see wrapping paper as a layer of mystery to what the gift is so its not that important, but if it was something with really fancy paper and ribbons etc and I could tell they put effort into that I usually unwrap it like I’m disarming a bomb and keep the paper for crafts
Episode: 004
Time Count: 28:57
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Spoiler Alert: Below is my loose summary of the first section
1:50 ~ 7:39 先週あった出来事について
1:56 先週は特に大きなエベントもなく落ち着いた1週間だったんですが、ま、そのね、何もなかったのに、結局自分のやりたいこともそれほど進まずに1週間が終わっちゃったって言う微妙な感じはあるんですが
(Sounds like most of my weeks 
)
Still, Utaco manages to meet up with a friend, Alex, from the adult education class she used to attend (he only attended for a few weeks before returning to Spain). Hearing that he was visiting America, she meets up with him & enjoys their short time together even squeezing in a little Spanish speaking practice with him!
She realizes that one of the good points of being an English learner living in America is that she gets to meet a wide range of people from around the world in her ESL classes which she might not have done, if she’d been fluent in English and hadn’t needed to attend those classes. She really enjoys finding out about other cultures and enlarging her world view. Even if fleeting, she wants to cherish these once-in-a-lifetime encounters (another 四字熟語 word: 一期一会 [いちごいちえ] and resolves to contact some of her friends she hasn’t talked to in a while.
But while having managed to make friends in her ESL classes, she’s found it difficult to make friends with actual Americans - of course there’s the language barrier (言葉の壁) and she acknowledges that her experience might be different if she were working where she’d have colleagues etc. Apart from her husband’s friends and their partners - who (in any case) don’t live nearby - she has few American friends. However nervous she feels speaking English with her ESL friends, this nervousness increases exponentially when she has to speak with native speakers. Even in Japan, she says, it is difficult to make friends as an adult, but it’s even more difficult when you live overseas.
My take on this: one hundred percent agree that making friends as you get older is more difficult, and even more difficult if you don’t work or if you are self-employed or work remotely. Friendships take time to cultivate and unless you are in a situation where you are encountering lots of transient people (like in big cities or ESL classes) chances are the people around you are already going to have established social networks and are not particularly out looking for new friends. I live in a small regional city having moved from a metropolis, but even now, years later, the majority of my social circle are not locals, but people who have moved here from other parts of the country or from overseas and this is without a language barrier.
Yeah I feel like there are many other aspects that make it hard to become friends with natives as a foreigner. I’m a foreigner where I live, and even though I have the same life as natives (normal job, family, etc), if I look at who are my close friends, they are all foreigners too!
I’ve reflected on why that might be not too long ago and some of the other reasons I think it is are: it’s hard to connect with natives because they have different problems. I had just became a mom when covid-19 started and it was forbidden to go out / travel. I was really sad that my family wouldn’t see my baby grow up, at an age where they change so fast. My native friends were really sad they couldn’t go to their vacation on Malaga as usually.
Another problem I can’t share with them is the language. If my kids speak my language that makes me very happy because I’m the only one speaking it in their daily life, so I feel like I have to fight against a whole country for them to even learn it. But I also can’t share those feelings with natives, they don’t understand my language and feel excluded if we speak it in front of them, and would rather we speak the local language.
One more aspect is natives are busy, they have so many things happening all the time, they have also their parents and family around. As a foreigner you have a smaller circle to begin with.
So anyway, even now after having been in the “new” country for 15 years, speaking the language fluently and having a full time job with natives only, my friends are other foreigners too, and I think it’s because my experience is too different from those of natives so it’s harder to connect with them on a deeper level (and I strongly believe that this would be the same anywhere, it’s not specific to Americans or in my case to Danes, it’s just very different lives we live as a foreigner)
Also thanks for your break down! I had gotten some of the gist of what’s she’s talking about but not all of this and not particular words I feel like, I’m impressed by those who can! Hope I will be able one day too!
Did I understand correctly that the year is 2018? It sounds so far back!
ぼちぼち - leisurely, steadily, bit by bit
挑戦したいこと - 挑戦 means to challenge, so she is talking about wanting to challenge herself with something.
微妙な感じ - odd, peculiar feeling
一時的に - temporary
Utako is reunited with Alex, a colleague from her ESL class. She was happy, as she wants to start learning Spanish soon. A positive point of her ESL class is that she makes many friends (or at least acquaintances) from different cultures/countries.
文化は違い部分 - cultural differences (between the US and Japan)
意見 - opinion, view
知り合い - acquaintances (the people she meet at her ESL course are more acquaintances then friends, she says)
連絡 - contact
She also mentions that it is very difficult to make Japanese friends in the US in same situation as her and husband.
同僚 - colleague, co-worker
緊張します - to be tense, nervous
気長に - patiently
This week’s favourite:
無印良品. Now that I looked it up (and it’s been a day since I listened), I’m unsure if she refers in particular to the brand Muji, or to the type of products it sells (if you are not familiar with them, I recommend just googling to understand their concept better).
The vocabulary in this part felt quite advanced/detailed, and I wasn’t familiar with quite a few terms - I hope I got at least a few of them noted down correctly.
製品 - product, manufactured good
無印 - unlabeled, unbranded (goods)
若干 - somewhat, to a certain extent
She mentions these products tend to be expensive in the US, and have a worse quality.
恋しくポイント - a point she misses/yearns for
手帳 - notebook
プリクラ - purikura! (unfamiliar? I also recommend looking it up!)
手で描くて - she is drawing or writing in the notebook
月刊カレンダー - I just had 月刊 in Wanikani, and it’s also a word that always reminds me of the manga 月刊少女野崎くん.
書き込む - to fill in
想像 - to imagine
日付の関係ないこと - something unrelated to the current day
日記 - diary
振り返る - to look back on, reflect on
はやってます - from 流行る, to be popular/trendy
手作り- handmade
She talks about bullet journals, too.
英語の話コーナー
The theme of this week is about rhythm when talking. Her anecdote was about the fact that, in her class, there are only Mexicans, her and one other guy, from Iraq (or Sudan? She corrects herself later on). And she thinks her English is better than his, as he makes several mistakes. However, she hears from colleagues that they actually have a hard time following her speech, due to the pauses she takes (Japanese 相槌) and that the other colleague has a faster rhythm, so is easier to follow. She was shocked to hear it!
はっきり発音 - clear pronunciation
りかいしてくる - to understand someone
わかりにくい - difficult to understand
さらに - furthermore
苦い経験 - bitter experience
発言 - statement
少し増しだろう 増し - slightly better
あっさり- easily, quickly
落ち込む - to feel down
あるある corner
I giggled a bit at this one. The main theme is older people falling in love, mainly women - older American women are seen as beautiful and sexy, which is different than in JP. There, older women tend to be seen as mothers and partners, but not as objects of “sexyness” or of romantic affection. For example, it isn’t common for an older JP man to say: isn’t my wife beautiful? - they are less expressive, especially in public, regarding their love. Plus, there’s a lot of divorce and remarriage in the US. In JP, especially when kids are involved, people tend to either not remarry or wait for the children to be adults/moved out before doing so, while in the US mixed families are more common.
Overall, I found it quite fascinating, but ended up not noting too much vocabulary (I guess I was too engrossed on the content). The only word that stood out was 魅力.
I love bullet journals 
I loved her talking about how she uses her notebook
As for the ESL it took me a hot second to realise ESL does not mean English Sign Language and I was like damn, going to a new country and learning sign language immediately what a power move. I find what she said about the rhythm and intonation of English interesting, I guess as a native you don’t really notice it so much but I guess we can speak pretty flatly. Whenever I hear Japanese I’m like wow your pitch is going all over the place that’s a lot of effort I’m not used to. As for rhythm I can’t really hear it in English myself, any non native English speakers know what she’s talking about there?
@snowwater I like your summaries of each section and vocab lists they’re very helpful 
ASL = American Sign Language
BSL = British Sign Language
ESL = English as a Second Language
Yep she also says it in the first episode if I recall correctly!
Thank you so much for the list of words!
It feels so far away for me now when I think it all started in 2018 - I’m quite interested in seeing how her podcast changes with the years, especially with the bigger societal events taking place like Covid and others.
And I’m glad the summary and lists are useful for you guys! 
Oh yes, agreed, I always listen out for those too when I binge a podcast that started before!
And I think this one is definitely one I want to continue listening to 
it’s still very much outside of my comfort zone while not being completely out of reach, so hope I will improve by keeping listening to it!
Doing a search image on this one gives tons of pictures like this:
maybe the photobooth where you can take pictures? aka the ancestor of selfies?
You’re right on the money 
As always, Jisho is also helpful: プリクラ - Jisho.org
Oh wow that definition was very specific indeed
Not a non-native, but I had had a bunch of youtube recommendations from linguists and some things that that told me about was English having stress accents and strong and weak forms etc. Like one example, go back and read that sentence out load, and pay attention to the “had had” and “that that” for example. Do you say both "had"s the same and both "that"s the same? Probably not right.
That’s something we all learned by talking to people growing up up, but much like an English speaker learning about pitch accent in Japanese, it’s something that’s easy for non-native speakers to overlook and actually makes non-native speech harder to listen to when they get it wrong.
Anyway, check out this guy’s channel if you want some examples. I think he mostly aims towards non-natives, but I found it interesting:
