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.