Advertise on podcast: Everyday Japanese Podcast

Yusuke(もしもしゆうすけ）once saw a young employee walk in late — Starbucks cup in hand, smiling — and we ended up talking about what's really shifting in Japan's workplaces. Is the younger generation just more relaxed, or is something bigger changing? We get into generational gaps, punctuality, paid leave, and power harassment — and what it all means for the future of Japanese work culture. It's the kind of conversation you'd have over coffee, not in a classroom. Come listen in! 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

If you're learning Japanese, you've probably watched a lot of channels made for learners. But you might also wonder what Japanese people actually watch — I get asked this a lot! So this time I'm just talking about four channels I watch myself. A bookshow, a literary critic, a cook, and one small channel about Tokyo that honestly I half wanted to keep to myself. It's a pretty relaxed episode. Everything I mention is linked here: https://www.sayurisaying.com/japanese-youtube-channels-i-actually-watch 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

It's not something people here talk about — so I asked. Tatsuya is back, this time to compare how married couples in Japan handle their finances: the old 小遣い制 kozukai-sei (the wife manages the salary and hands her husband monthly spending money), what 按分 anbun means (splitting shared costs proportionally, not 50/50), and why some couples end up with three wallets. We also get into travel, workation, and one small purchase worth far more than it cost. Unscripted Japanese for intermediate learners and up! Tatsuya also teaches Japanese online. If you're looking for a teacher, check out his trial lesson and Instagram in the links below! 🗓️ https://calendly.com/tatsuya-diginjapan/trial-30minute-lesson https://www.instagram.com/tatsuyajapanese/ --- 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

"Human dock." That's what 人間(にんげん）ドック literally says. So what do you think it actually means? Maybe some of you are thinking "human and dog." I went for one recently, and in this episode I talk through the whole morning, from the changing room to sitting down with the doctor at the end. I also get into how it's different from the kenko shindan (健康診断), the free yearly checkup that companies arrange, and the one test I'd rather not do again. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

It started with a mountain of negi — green onions — piled onto a bowl of udon at a self-serve topping station. In this episode, Yusuke(もしもしゆうすけ） and I talk about where the line is, why shops now have to post rules that used to go without saying, and what that shift says about Japanese society today. If you've ever felt like something quietly changed in how people treat shared spaces, this conversation is for you! 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

We all have those little happy moments — too small to tell anyone about, but that quietly make your day. Lately I've been wanting to hold onto them, so I built a quiet website to collect them: Hokkori Biyori. (Hokkori is that warm feeling when your heart softens; biyori means a lovely day for something.) It's a collection of short true stories, about 100–150 characters each, drawn from my own life and the people I've met along the way, no likes, no sharing buttons, just a calm space to keep these small moments. In this episode, I talk about why I made it, and read a few of the stories aloud, including one written by a student of mine🤍 Visit the site: hokkoribiyori.org 手動のオルゴール https://hokkoribiyori.org/story/hand-crank-music-box 言葉のいらない仲 https://hokkoribiyori.org/story/wordless-bond 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

If you could never drink alcohol or coffee again, which would you give up? For me the answer was easy — I don't drink — but the question led somewhere I didn't expect. Both drinks bring people together, but in completely different ways. I talk about 無礼講 bureiko (setting aside rank and formality over drinks), シラフ shirafu (being sober), and 飲みニュケーションnominication (bonding through drinking), plus two stories: friends in their 40s who quit alcohol and lost their circle, and an awkward moment at my new hobby club. ☕ Mentioned in this episode: I talked about people who choose not to drink in Episode #164, Sober Curious Lifestyle. If you'd like to hear more on that, it's here: https://www.sayurisaying.com/sober-curious-lifestyle/ 🎙️ This episode is part of the Japanese Podcast Relay — other hosts are answering the same question in their own episodes. Listen to all of them here: ⁠https://ruby-s.net/jpr/⁠ 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

After spending two months in India, I landed in Japan craving one thing: a warm bowl of udon. I'm originally from Kagawa, known as Udon-ken (Udon Prefecture — where udon is practically a way of life), but these days I live in Fukuoka, the city famous around the world for tonkotsu ramen. Here's the surprising part: when I asked people here "udon or ramen?" — the answers weren't what you'd expect from the ramen capital of Japan. In this episode, I take you through Fukuoka's udon culture — the famously soft noodles that locals joke "never run out," the sweet and savory niku udon made with Kyushu's distinctive soy sauce, gobo-ten (burdock root tempura — the topping you'll find everywhere here), and my slightly embarrassing but genius way of ordering at a local udon chain. I also finally share something I was too nervous to talk about while living in Kagawa: what udon really means to people from the Udon Prefecture. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

In part 2 of this series, YUYU throws out a question that really got me thinking: is AI becoming our new god? We talk about how easy it is to lean on ChatGPT when we don't know what to do, why that habit can quietly turn into something risky, and where the line is between using AI as a tool and letting it think for us. We also get into journaling as an alternative way to work through uncertainty without outsourcing it. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

After a trip to India, I started wondering why Japanese people rarely talk about faith the way people in more religious countries do. In part 1 of this two-part series, YUYU and I dig into what shrine visits and New Year prayers actually mean to us, why Japan seems to have rules but not always morals, and how Nitobe Inazo's Bushido once tried to answer that. We also get into "oshikatsu" (obsessively supporting an idol or celebrity) and whether it's quietly become a modern religion in disguise. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

It's 海の日 -Umi no Hi (Marine Day) here in Japan, and I'm marking it with a taste of what a Japanese summer at the sea really feels like 🌊 I talk about 海開き- umi biraki (the official beach-opening ceremony), the nostalgic snacks and drinks you'll find at 海の家- umi no ie (beach huts), and why the swimming season here is surprisingly short. Along the way, I get into 自己責任 - jiko sekinin (self-responsibility) A quiet idea that says a lot about how things work in Japan, even when no one writes the rules down. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

I recently came back from India, and I kept getting the same question from European travelers — "So what do you think of the new Takaichi administration?" And honestly? I froze. It wasn't a language problem. I just never expected that question, and I realized I'd never really thought about it. So I brought it to Yusuke (もしもしゆうすけ）. Do Japanese people actually talk about politics? With friends, with coworkers, at all? We ended up having a surprisingly candid conversation — and his take on voting genuinely caught me off guard. This is just one Japanese person's perspective, but it opened up some bigger questions about political interest, everyday life, and what these conversations actually look like in Japan. Casual, honest, and the kind of topic that's hard to practice from a textbook. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

Have you ever wondered why 梅雨（つゆ）☔️Japan's rainy season — has the kanji for "plum" in it? I didn't either, until this year. In this episode: that mystery, plus how I'm spending these gray days — brewing two kinds of homemade 梅シロップ（plum syrup）, a slow walk past blooming hydrangea, deep-cleaning my 水回り（the water-use spots — sink, drain, etc.）, and an evening at the sento learning to だらだらする, do absolutely nothing. Cozy listening for intermediate-to-advanced learners. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

I'm joined by Tatsuya, a Sapporo local, to talk about what summer in the city is actually like. We get into biergarten (ビアガーデン — large-scale outdoor beer events that run through July and August), Hokkaido specialties like jingisukan (ジンギスカン — a Hokkaido-style grilled lamb dish) and zangi, regional beer brands, and the best day trips if you want to see Hokkaido beyond the city. If you've ever thought about visiting in winter, this episode might just change your mind. Tatsuya also teaches Japanese online. If you're looking for a teacher, check out his trial lesson and Instagram in the links below! 🗓️ https://calendly.com/tatsuya-diginjapan/trial-30minute-lesson https://www.instagram.com/tatsuyajapanese/ 🎧 Full transcript, video(with subs), and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support

I moved to Fukuoka and this is my honest review of life here so far. There's a lot to love, but there are also a few things that don't quite work for me yet. In this episode I share both — not as a travel guide, but as someone actually living here day to day. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to settle into a new city in Japan, I hope this gives you a real sense of it. 🎧 Full transcript, video, and more: https://sayurisaying.com Search by episode number (e.g., “EP 120”) to find what you need!🐧 Join the Penguin Family for bonus content & support the show! Your support helps keep this podcast alive and means a lot to me. Thank you for considering! 🩷 Support this podcast https://sayurisaying.com/support https://auphonic.com/donate_credits?user=sayurisaying