How to Japanese Podcast · Daniel Morales

Ep 64 - 五月雨式

·25 min·1 clip

December 3rd in Meiji 5 became January 1st in Meiji 6, shifting the calendar about a month.

1. How to Japanese Podcast episode 64 centers on 五月雨式, a Japanese word Daniel Morales unpacks through pronunciation, kanji, and weather history. 2. Daniel Morales, founder of HowToJapanese.com, hosts the episode and uses his newsletter, blog, and podcast as linked teaching formats. 3. The episode asks why 五月雨式 means "intermittently" and why the spoken form samidare shiki differs from the written characters. 4. Daniel starts with a practical business example, saying "samidare shiki ni moushiwake arimasen" for sending a translation request in parts. 5. He explains that samidare shiki can carry a negative tone in an apology, but it can also help a company start work before all materials arrive. 6. Daniel then breaks down the kanji as gogatsu for five-month, ame for rain, and shiki as style or method. 7. He notes that many learners might read the characters as gogatsu ameshiki, but the correct pronunciation is samidare shiki. 8. He describes the older calendar pronunciation satsuki for May and says that helps explain the sa in samidare. 9. He also says midare likely comes from mizu and tare, though he presents that etymology cautiously. 10. Daniel ties samidare to rainy-season rains that stop and start, making the word a compact description of intermittent weather. 11. He connects the word to Japan's old lunar-solar calendar and says the rainy season used to fall in May. 12. He gives the specific calendar change from December 3, Meiji 5 to January 1, Meiji 6, or 1872 to 1873. 13. He lists the month-by-month shift that followed: December became January, November became December, and so on until May became June. 14. Daniel says samidare is now effectively the rains of June, even though the word still carries the older May association. 15. He gives another example, satsuki hare, for brief clear weather during rainy-season storms and notes it is often confused with pleasant May weather. 16. Daniel says samidare is especially useful in business because it is dense and visually meaningful in a single word. 17. The tone is conversational and instructional, with Daniel pausing to repeat phrases and explain pronunciation carefully. 18. The format moves between language lesson, personal weather notes from Osaka, and end-of-episode recommendations. 19. Listeners interested in Japanese vocabulary, kanji, and business phrasing would likely get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting only entertainment or no language detail may skip it.

As heard by us

A rainy-season Japanese expression opens into usage, pronunciation, tentative etymology, and calendar history.

Episode 64 turns 五月雨式, or samidare-shiki, into a neat language note about rain, rhythm, and older ways of marking time. It moves from a pronunciation puzzle into a tentative look at water-and-drop origins, then settles on the useful image: work that arrives unevenly, stopping…

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Why you'd press play

You get samidare-shiki as more than a vocabulary item: a rainy-season image, a workday rhythm, and the calendar history hiding inside May.

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