You can find Brian MacDuckston of Ramen Adventures crushing bowls of ramen on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and now you can find him on the How to Japanese Podcast:

• How was your trip to Hokkaido? How is Hokkaido different from the rest of Japan?
• How long have you been in Japan and what have you done so far?
• How much time are you doing ramen/journalism work versus English teaching?
• What strategies would you recommend to diversify your income as an English conversation teacher?
  • Gaijinpot
• What is it like teaching private students?
• The Collabo-Ramen videos were great!
• How has ramen changed in the last nine years? What trends are you seeing? Is ramen a trend-driven industry?
  • Watering Hole
  • B級グルメ
  • ぐるナイ
• Why are Japanese so obsessed with/interested in food?
• When did you start studying Japanese and what strategies have been helpful?
  • Genki Japanese textbooks
  • Anki
• What ramen vocabulary has been helpful for you?
• Mapple maps were amazing, and are sadly now not necessary because of smartphones
  • Mapple
  • Touring Mapple
  • Thomas Guides
• What has it been like being a creator in Japan?
• When did you start to feel Ramen Adventures taking off?

At the top of the pod, I talk about set phrases used for condolences, which I wrote about in the Japan Times back in April 2016. Here is he set of telegram phrases I found, some usage recommendations for telegrams from a digital telegram service, and the cost breakdown for messages from NTT.

You can also subscribe to the How to Japanese Podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify.

Emily Balistrieri is a Russian translator in another universe. Fortunately for us, she’s a Japanese translator in this one. On the second episode of the How to Japanese Podcast, learn about Emily’s translation projects past and present, study experience, and how Japanese beat out Russian in the end:

• What is your translation workload like right now?
  • JK Haru is a Sex Worker in Another World
  • The Saga of Tanya the Evil
• How much content do you try to translate each day and how do you measure it?
• Do you translate from a paper copy or digital copy?
• Are you in touch with any of the authors you translate?
  • “The Saga of Tanya the Evil Author Carlo Zen and English Translator Emily Balistrieri“
  • “The Vast Light Novel Universe“
• Do any light novels take inspiration from the Harry Potter universe?
  • isekai
  • The Vision of Escaflowne
  • Magic Knight Rayearth
  • Fushigi Yugi
• Were you reading light novels before you started translating them?
  • Overlord
  • Overlord Wiki
• What is J Novel and what has working with them been like?
• The translation of light novel titles
• What was your path to fluency?
• What was it like to go from courses to using Japanese in Japan?
• What was the first novel you read and what reading strategies did you have to get through the work?
  • 坊ちゃん (Botchan)
• When did you start translating?
• What advice would you give to students who are interested in translation?
  • 森見登美彦 (Morimi Tomihiko), ペンギン・ハイウェイ (Penguin Highway), 夜は短し歩けよ乙女 (The Night is Short, Walk on Girl)
• What was it like working at Twitter in Japan?

For the top of the podcast, I talked about learning how to cook in Japan and how it made me want to go back to Japan.

You can also subscribe to the How to Japanese Podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify.

I’ve always been impressed with the breadth of Daniel McCalla‘s Japanese culture consumption, judging from his Twitter feed, and I’m even more impressed after talking to him for the first episode of the How to Japanese Podcast. Listen to our conversation here:

• What are your Japanese culture consumption habits like?
  • Famitsu
• What authors or series do you follow?
  • 森博嗣  (Mori Hiroshi)
  • 住野よる (Sumino Yoru), 君の膵臓を食べたい (I Want to Eat Your Pancreas)
  • 河野裕 (Kono Yutaka), サクラダリセット, 階段島
  • Kodansha Comics
  • Kadokawa
  • BookOFF
  • 読書メーター (Book Meter)
    • Find Daniel here and here!
• How long are the books you’re reading?
  • Murakami considering writing another volume of 1Q84
• Do you read physical books or digital versions?
• When did you read your first novel and how long did it take to get to that point?
  • Tadoku graded readers (books Daniel used)
  • すべてがFになる
• The difficulty of the first few pages of works of Japanese literature
• What kind of study approaches did you take?
  • Pimsleur
  • Michel Thomas
  • All Japanese All The Time
  • James Heisig, Remembering the Kanji
  • Anki
  • koohii
  • iknow
  • Crunchyroll
• What was it like to visit Japan and use Japanese after having studied a little?
• How did the reading group you joined help your language study?
  • Kyoto International Community House
• How was the transition to full-time translation?
• What’s your balance between translation work and work to market yourself?
• What advice would you give to students who are interested in translation?
• Why did you get interested in Japanese?

At the top of the podcast I reminisced about the brief, awesome ten weeks when I watched football along with thousands of Japanese fans on Twitter.

You can also subscribe to the How to Japanese Podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify.

For me, podcasts are inextricably linked with Japan. I started listening to them while I was living there, way back when I had to manually drag episodes from iTunes over to my big, fat iPod.

I listened to them as I drove around Fukushima Prefecture to the elementary school where I taught and on the weekends to see friends and to travel around Tohoku. My mainstays back then were Bill Simmons’ BS Report, the Penny Arcade guys (even though I wasn’t really playing video games), Car Talk, and the NPR Sunday Puzzle.

It took me a while, but How to Japanese now has a serious podcast! Check out the trailer (S01E00).

I had a podcast misfire back when I was in grad school (and desperate to make something…anything), and I hope you don’t spend too much time tracking it down because it was shite.

I’ve put more work into this (real) one. I’m planning to release the podcast in 10-episode seasons with the first season starting next week. The goal is much the same as this blog—be helpful. Help readers/listeners get used to Japanese and learn how others have had success living and working in Japan and with Japanese. I found 10 incredibly interesting guests who were very generous with their time and shared how they started translating, writing, editing, teaching English, studying, researching, lawyering, ramening, and making video games in Japan. I’m very excited to share their stories and advice.

So please subscribe and share! And if you have any questions, feel free to get in touch at howtojapanese at gmail dot com. I’d be glad to take language questions and any other Japan-related concerns.

All music in the podcast comes from the excellent おとわび.

You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, and Spotify.