You are learning fresh produce: you will read the scene it happens in, learn 10 words and phrases, take apart the pattern behind them (freshness questions + i-adjective grammar), hear them in a conversation, rehearse them, and finish by saying one thing out loud to be graded.
Yanaka Ginza shopping street, Yanaka, north Tokyo — one of the last surviving shōtengai (traditional shopping streets) in the city. Tuesday morning. The vegetable stalls are stacked with seasonal Japanese produce.
Yanaka Ginza is one of the last traditional shopping streets in Tokyo that has resisted development. The buildings are wooden and old. Cats sleep in doorways. The vegetable stalls are run by the same families that have been here for three generations. This is not the Tokyo of glass towers and fast fashion — it's the Tokyo that existed before the Olympics and the concrete.
The stranger stops at a stall with a pile of perfect tomatoes. The vendor is an elderly woman who has clearly been here since dawn. The stranger asks: 「すみません、今の旬は何ですか？」 — Sumimasen, ima no shun wa nan desu ka? What's in season now?
The vendor lights up. She explains something about tomatoes and a name that the stranger doesn't catch. But she picks out three and hands them over. 「食べてみてください。」 — try them. The stranger tastes. Sweet and intense. They buy a kilo.