Interesting point. I think she had her own website before she had the podcast; certainly she had a blog before the website (talks about this in a later episode)
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8:10 横断歩道を渡る歩行者の歩く速度が遅い遅いすぎるあるあるあるあるある
On this tendency to repeat for emphasis, YUYU has a great podcast (#301)
「リピートしたら、みんなの日本語はもっと日本人になる！」
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Week 7
Episode: 007
Time Count: 33:29
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Hello, I am quite curious to know for how long you guys will listen to this podcast series. From the previous episode I got/get the feeling that the series will change? I do not expect finishing it al of course.
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I think it’s ten episodes per podcast. The next podcast is already being voted on/ (has been voted on?)
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Ah I see, tnx for letting me know.
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Doing last minute Christmas present wrapping after a couple of glasses of sparkling wine. My daughter has stolen my wrapping paper so I’m having to improvise. Mmm, don’t think I’m going to pass Utaco’s stringent wrapping requirements
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If there’s enough interest there might end up being an offshoot club, we’ll see 
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For now this podcast is above my level. So don’t expect much from me.
In the last episode I did recognize some words but could process it that fast so called a blank. And party one sentence.
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Here’s another short summary I wrote a few months ago.
皆さんの参考になれば嬉しいです。
4989 Episode#7
食料品買い物事情
アメリカ在住、我が家の食生活事情
She started off with the intention of talking about the food she eats/prepares but got started on shopping & spent about half an episode talking about the shops she frequents & why. So for most vegetables and ground meat it’s usually the Mexican supermarket, for most Japanese/Asian foods/veges it’s the Korean market or the Phillipines market; for some meat, dairy foods, bread & some other items it’s the American supermarket. She also visits grocery outlet, cosco, Trader Joes and Wholefoods on occasion,. She comments on the fact the meat being sold doesn’t look particularly fresh
日本語との付き合い方？:
Here she suggests that you don’t have to create an English-only environment when you’re a Japanese person living in America; that it’s okay to read the news and other things in Japanese. One benefit she says is that if you read the news in English, you probably won’t understand much of it but if you read it in Japanese you’ll be able to understand it and so you’ll be able to participate more in conversations in English. Basically, she’s saying don’t beat yourself up about not doing enough English - gradually increase the amount you do in English and let yourself slide when it’s emotionally necessary. Good advice for all language learners I think.
今週のmy favorite:
Here she talks about hot water bottles 湯たんぽwhich seem to be slightly different from the rubber ones I’m familiar with (she says these resemble Japanese 水枕 which people use when they have a fever. Anyway, when she’s in the house alone, she thinks turning on the heating is waste of money so she uses a hotwater bottle bought from 無印良品 in Japan. She recommends taking it along on camping trips too
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Episode 7 thoughts
I was surprised when she mentions Trader Joe’s (トレーダージョーズ (or トレジョ)) being known in Japan. Apparently it’s know as a place to pick up お土産 like stylish shopping bags (エコバッグ) and chocolate. I’m definitely out-of-the-loop because I had always thought of Trader Joe’s as an American West Coast chain, but they’ve not only expanded across the country but are also known abroad.
~11:10 she talks about Costco and begins to doubt the name: コストコ? コスコ? For a moment, she made me doubt the real name.
On Wikipedia it mentions:「Costco には、アメリカ英語の発音に近い『コスコ』の片仮名転写がある。。。」so I understand her hesitation.
A couple of times she uses the verb ゲットする instead of 手に入る or something. ゲット even has an entry in Jisho.
Somebody on Hinative thinks it might have been popularized by the Pokemon anime (which Ash uses a lot), but maybe it’s just part of the steady invasion of カタカナ語?
I liked her advice to English learners about cutting yourself some slack when you don’t feel like reading/listening to English – which I think applies to any language learning really. I know there’s the so-called AJATT method for Japanese, but even with that I think the idea is to try to always make it fun for yourself.
New words/phrases I learned that I found interesting:
大目に見る = to overlook (a mistake, fault, etc.); to let slide; to give someone a break
運試し (うんだめし) = try one’s luck
どっぷり = totally immersed in something (work, etc); addicted
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Time stamps
- Intro
- 1:45 Daily life story (moderate difficulty, there are a lot of loan words to lean on so it gets easier after the first few minutes)
- 17:00 英語の話のコーナー (hardest section this time imo)
- 27:15 今週のmy favourite (not too bad if you look up 湯たんぽ first)
- 32:00 close
My comments
Daily life section
I like how she started with a full katakana version to introduce Trader Joe’s (American supermarket chain), and that got shortened to トレジョ
Other chain names for people not from the US: Whole Foods, Costco (I actually thought it was Cosco so her confusion was understandable and funny)
She goes on some tangents this time! Lisaveeta’s summaries were helpful for me to get more, especially from the English corner section.
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I don’t have many thoughts regarding the ep, but I just wanted to pop in here to say that I can pretty much understand what she’s talking about in each section now, and it’s not as vague as before (though this still depends on the topic and my energy)
I understand less than 70% overall (an imprecise calculation based on vibes 
), and even less if I try to break down every single sentence. But I feel good about this progress because I can actually pay attention now and don’t feel completely discouraged when I finish an episode. The best part, though, is that the speed doesn’t stress me out as much as it used to. So things are looking hopeful!!
And as usual, thanks to everyone sharing summaries and thoughts!
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Week 8
Episode: 008
Time Count: 29:26
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Time stamps for each section and relative difficulty (for this podcast)
- Into (moderate- harder: about about learning Spanish, her word choice/ formality in this podcast, introducing today’s podcast)
- 4:15 Daily Life (moderate difficulty, very daily life) (continuation from last week’s theme)
- 11:38 make sure you listen to this part about popcorn, I like the onomatopoeia here
- 11:38 make sure you listen to this part about popcorn, I like the onomatopoeia here
- 15:20 America あるある (easier - moderate, you’ll need the word マリファナ marijuana)
- 18:30 英語の話のコーナー (easier) (about an aha moment with “th”)
- 24:05 “my favourite” (easiest, about limes)
- 27:40 close
I listened to the first 10 episodes during the summer listening everyday challenge, and listening again with the club now some months later has been a great boost. There are particular sections where I’ll suddenly realise I understood it a lot better this time around
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I’m a little behind from the holidays, but catching up for the holidays.
I had to double check other people’s summary because I was sure I had it wrong, but apparently not lol. To hear America described as (a) too laid back and (b) pedestrians not respecting drivers feels like a story from an alternate reality lol..
Also interesting hearing her appreciation for ovens, given I’ve heard basically the opposite conversation from some western youtubers in japan grumbling about the lack of ovens in Japanese apartments lol.
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They’re available on Podbean. I realize I’m replying to a question that was asked almost a month ago, but I only found out about the podcast club this week 
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Just posting a summary of episode 8 from a couple of months ago - I went through a stage of summarising the episodes I was listening to as a kind of personal exercise in listening comprehension but it took a fair amount of time so somewhere along the line, I stopped.
エピソード8 〜thの発音
Intro: Starts with her speaking a little in Spanish. Turns out she’s beginning to learn Spanish because she has Spanish speaking friends. Then she talks briefly about how - over the course of these podcasts - her language has changed from formal to more everyday usage & that’s she’s kind of lost her way in knowing what level of language is appropriate. She also comments that she thinks it’s good for your brain to have to put into words all the thoughts you have and so starting this podcast has been a good thing for her.
アメリカの存在、我が家の食生活事情 (後編 ): She then moves onto what she intended to talk about last episode which was what they eat at home. They don’t eat out all that much, but they do eat a wide variety of meals at home, trying not to have the same food meal after meal. Living in an area with a lot of Mexican immigrants, they’ve started to eat a lot of Mexican food. In Japan she didn’t eat much Mexican food - maybe only Tacos - but now cooks Mexican food like Quescadilla, Tacos, Empinadas etc. Japanese ingredients are expensive so she doesn’t cook Japanese food much but does cook a lot of Asian food (Korean, Thai, recently Vietnamese pho). Talking about Asian food reminds her that she’s just made friends with a Thai classmate at her ESL class (amusingly she’d thought they were Mexican!) who she’s also asked to teach her some Thai cooking. She’s also been inspired by some of her other classmates to try cooking from Europe and the Middle East. Luckily, her husband is adventurous when it comes to food unlike some of the husbands of her friends who are “picky”
She’s also cooking more food using the oven (vegetables, meat, gratins). Since coming to America, she’s got a popcorn maker & is making lots of popcorn (you can buy a range of seasonings at the supermarket but she generally uses salt, pepper, curry & cumin). This reminds her that she now uses a lot cumin (has a big bottle of it) thanks to cooking Indian, Asian and Mexican food whereas she didn’t use it in Japan. Another significant change since coming to America is that she is making more things from scratch - making her own roux for example instead of buying it
スカンク？マリファナ？：Talks about how skunks smell like marujuana (マリファナ) to her & that once when they were driving in the mountains, she thought she smelled dope (imagining a wild party) but her husband told her it was actually a skunk she was smelling. She wonders if she’s alone in thinking skunks and dope smell similar
thの発音: Talks about her initial difficulty with the “th” pronunciation in English - how when she first came to America, she really wasn’t really aware of it - she knew how to make the sound in theory and that it was in the word “thank you” but somehow couldn’t recognise it in other words, continuing to use katakana English (the fault of pronouncing ‘th’ wrongly all the way through high school?) when it came to words like “that” until her husband pointed it out.
My favourite: Talks about how she’s got into using limes in the place of lemons since coming to America because - among other things - they’re incredibly cheap at the Mexican supermarket (12 for $1) However, sometimes she gets lemons from other people because lots of people have lemon trees in their gardens (something she finds surprising)
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ahhh thank you!! I’d just downloaded the first few episodes off of Youtube but good to know there’s an actual place to get them!
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I’m originally from California (I’m not sure what part she’s from but she did mention San Francisco so maybe my neck of the woods?). I went to visit a friend in New Jersey many years ago and she had to pull me back from the curb and told me that I was going to get killed because they’d just run me down. So it’s definitely different depending on where you are.
Speaking of California, the skunk/weed section cracked me up. I remember when we were living in London and went to visit Amsterdam it felt weirdly like home because it would smell like weed walking around 
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