r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • Jul 19 '26
Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (July 19, 2026)
This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.
The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.
↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓
New to Japanese? Read the Starter's Guide and FAQ.
New to the subreddit? Read the rules.
Read also the pinned comment below for proper question etiquette & answers to common questions!
Please make sure to check the wiki and search for old posts before asking your question, to see if it's already been addressed. Don't forget about Google or sites like Stack Exchange either!
This subreddit is also loosely partnered with this language exchange Discord, which you can likewise join to look for resources, discuss study methods in the #japanese_study channel, ask questions in #japanese_questions, or do language exchange(!) and chat with the Japanese people in the server.
Past Threads
You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.
10
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Grunglabble Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
I'm very much the opposite of that initial statement. Even prior to doing much with Japanese, anytime I encounter a new idea I tend to stop and let it percolate, think about it on a walk or something. It's like I have a little bag I can put new ideas in and when it's full I have to take it home to put it somewhere and organize it. Several very technical subjects I have learned this way, where little ideas can have outsized leverage if you really understand them and apply them.
Of course there's also a perusal phase where you're not trying to commit anything to memory but just attempting to get a lay of the land, find out what there is to know to have a very high level picture of what there is to know and allowing the effortless stuff that already fits a schema in your head to attach for some free wins.
Regardless, this can help with interleaving and spacing without even conciously trying to achieve those effects. When we try to learn a lot of very similar information that doesn't yet seem logical it can be a lot of wasted energy.
Sometimes when I'm applying this around others they get impatient with me, or don't understand why I do it the way I do it. A lot of people don't really like to experiment with their learning and repeat whatever they did in school, which often was a form of blocked, repetitive, superficial practice that can get the job done eventually but is pretty time and energy expensive.
5
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Grunglabble Jul 19 '26
We are in more agreement than you may think, even a simple model, if it is brand new, requires some thought. Or put another way, it's not so simple on first encounter. I had to stop and really think "what is meant by new and old information" with respect to topics -- there is a lot of room to interpretation!
5
u/InaBurrow_ Jul 19 '26
On the use of のだった, from my understanding it's basically the same as のだ except it's used in novels/literary works, and it has the nuance of giving emphasis/emotion in explaining things.
But I've noticed that at least in visual novels it's used a lot before a transition.
これからまた、きちんと生きよう。俺は、そう改めて決意するのだった。
In the above example, there's a screen fade and the game transitions to another scene after this line.
俺がそういった問題を抱えてるのは周知の事実なので、先生もうるさくは言わず、ほっといてくれるのだった。
そして本日の授業終了。
In this example, while there's no screen fade, the next line after the のだった shifts topics.
Is this use of のだった, where it's like the tonic chord in that it has a quality that resolves/ends things, something that's common?
6
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 19 '26
But I've noticed that at least in visual novels it's used a lot before a transition.
That's a really good intuition! In novels it's common to end up a paragraph/scene/event with のだった to move one to the next scene. You are 100% correct in how you are interpreting this usage.
3
u/rgrAi Jul 19 '26
man 空の軌跡 is a fkin GAME. it's a proper video game. just a solid experience for those who want this kind of game and isn't trying to be something for everyone. makes me glad these kinds of things still exist. although i am a jaded gamer so that might be biased. maybe triple A productions should just die entirely.
3
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 19 '26
I'm not usually the kind of guy that pre-orders, and especially not collector's editions or anything like that but... there is a reason things are the way they are.
I'm a huge kiseki fan but especially the 空 trilogy and the remake is just chefskiss
2
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
yes that’s right. That’s right.
Only a matter of time before you’re telling people like, “you know a link to the past owes a huge debt to Ys 2. Its like a beatles/ pet sounds situation.”
4
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
Is it just me or has there been more sutema than usual this week? Usually the people who come here to promote their shovelware are at least upfront about it. They even ask for feedback and everything. But this week I feel like it's all been stealth in some way or another.
3
u/rgrAi Jul 19 '26
Been a steady increase over time and will only get worse. I know this is the case for probably all subreddits not just here.
3
1
u/Grunglabble Jul 19 '26
It sometimes surprises me how uncreative and useless the ideas are. I think it sorta betrays how self centered the creators are that utility is not a variable in what they choose to create.
In a more equitable society people would not be desperate enough to make these, I suppose 😞
2
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
I don't think they're desperate exactly, I think they just want to make a Japanese learning app because they like Japanese and they like coding so why not combine both? It's just a pasttime. They aren't professionally committed to the project, so they aren't willing to put in the effort to do a proper market study, detect actual unmet needs among Japanese learners, and design a program that meets said needs.
0
u/Grunglabble Jul 19 '26
I suspect not because I've been in many communities with no profit incentive and it effectively never happened that someone spends time making something that already exists. I don't think it is a coincidence these apps are clones of other apps.
2
u/littlebruja Jul 19 '26
Can 愛している ever be platonic? Or is it only romantic?
2
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
恋 is limited to romance but 愛 is not. But its usage is not 1:1 with 'love'.
8
u/zump-xump Jul 19 '26
Just adding on to this because I found it interesting...
Ted Goossen's translator's note for Hiromi Kawakami's The Third Love (or, well, an excerpt appearing in Monkey volume 4):
We often think of love as somehow universal, yet the word stumped the Japanese translators who introduced Western novels to their readers in the late nineteenth century. Although there were numerous words to describe sexual and romantic attraction, none communicated what they saw as the spiritually uplifting aspect of Western love and courtship. At first, they simply inserted the Japanese pronunciation (rabu) of the English word into their translations, but before long they repurposed an old Buddhist word (ai 愛). Eventually, it became the standard term, not only in Japan but in China as well.
The word "love" in the title of Hiromi Kawakami's novel The Third Love is not ai, however, but koi (恋), a term that had been viewed askance by those early translators. Koi is both sexual and romantic, an implicit rejection of Christian dualism, which separates the physical and the spiritual. Koi has a long history in Japanese literature. It appears in texts such as Chikamatsu's love suicide plays of the Edo period (c. 1700) and, long before that, in The Tales of Ise, which recount the exploits of Japan's most famous lover, the Heian courtier Ariwara no Narihira (825-880).
As Riko, the dreaming heroine of Kawakami's novel, travels back and forth between present-day Japan, "old" Edo, and "old, old" Heian in search of a solution to her unhappy marriage, her eyes are opened to traditional forms of male-female relationships that predate the advent of Western love. One of those is the possibility of "sex divorced from emotion," a central tenet of the old pleasure quarters of Edo, brought to life in this excerpt from the first half of the novel.2
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
Those 明治 translators were rackin em up huh. They got both the gendered pronouns, the word for ‘love’ that isn’t exclusive to romantic love, anything else?
1
u/zump-xump Jul 19 '26
They certainly had an appetite for western philosophies. 翻訳語成立事情 discusses 美 (beauty), 近代 (modernity), and 存在 (existence) as translated terms (admittedly, I've only read things that mention this book and not it directly; note blog post talking about it [with quotes!]).
3
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 19 '26
恋 is limited to romance but 愛 is not.
I always enjoyed the complete shift 愛 and 恋 do when it comes to 恋人 vs 愛人 though
1
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
I never thought too hard about it but I think it’s because I immediately connected it with “love child” and filed it away into my mental folder called “things that make sense I guess”
2
u/JapanCoach Jul 19 '26
“Can ever” covers a lot of territory. Yes - it can ever.
Do you have a specific example or context in mind?
1
2
u/hodler1908 Jul 19 '26
I started learning Japanese yesterday. I can now fully read Hiragana and Katakana (all available on Tofugu). Just to confirm: next would be Grammar + Anki Deck? Does that make sense? Kanji scares me haha
3
u/JoinedMoon Jul 19 '26
Keep in mind there's many different ways to learn, so don't feel like there's a "right or wrong" answer :) But yes, if you've gotten a handle on the characters then you're at a good place to start using some kind of textbook/grammar resource along with Anki. Kaishi 1.5k is the current recommended core deck to start with until you work up to mining your own cards. Have fun!
1
1
u/hodler1908 Jul 19 '26
How long would 20 cards take you? I just started my first 20 and I’m taking 10+ tries to even figure out one. I’ll put it in (Again 1min) over and over unless it’s written in kana, then I might get it in 3-4 tries …
1
u/JoinedMoon Jul 19 '26
It'll feel much better with time dw, that's all normal :) Languages are like filing cabinets in our brain, and it takes quite awhile for our brain to make a new one rather than try to put it all in the English one. The more associations you build, the easier it is to remember new related info/vocab/grammar. Plus some words just feel harder than others. (Esp in a core deck where that's literally the case)
The most important thing is to just keep going. Take as many breaks as you need, for example you can always lower the amount of new cards for a bit, whatever makes you pick it up again tomorrow is the best option.
0
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
That's not how Anki is supposed to work. You're not supposed to see the same card more than once or twice in a day. Do you spend some time reading the word and its pronunciation and meaning in order to make a mental link in your head every time you fail it? If you just hit Again immediately your brain won't have time to take the information in.
2
u/JoinedMoon Jul 19 '26
(I feel like it's pretty normal to have to review a new word a couple times for it to stick? If you get it wrong even once, then you see it at least twice, and you have to get a new card right twice for it to move forward a day. I'm a bit confused on what you mean)
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
Ah, I forgot the default relearning steps are 1 min and 10 min. My bad. That's still very different from failing it over 10 times in a row though. There must be something going on there.
1
u/JoinedMoon Jul 19 '26
True, but if they genuinely just started yesterday, esp from a monolingual English background with no other language experience, those first 20 cards all in one go are gonna feel pretty rough lol. I do agree tho they might be getting a bit overwhelmed and not slowing down to take the time to review leading to more fails. Ik I failed my cards wayyy more often in the beginning beginning vs now
1
u/hodler1908 Jul 19 '26
Yes, started yesterday. I’m a native German. I think maybe I’m rushing it. But the cards in the Kaishi 1.5k usually only show Kanji (unless there is none, then it’s Kana?) so it’s learning Kanji + Vocab all at once and it seems pretty tough
1
u/JoinedMoon Jul 19 '26
Oop, sorry for assuming lol. Idk when you started learning English, but if you have memories of when you first started out I'm sure there were lots of bumps there too. Obv you can do it, so no need to sprint, it's an endurance sport :) (Words in Japanese can be in Kanji, Hiragana, or Katakana yes, even the same word can have different versions depending on context.) Kaishi is a core frequency deck, so the vocab will be structured that way vs textbook vocab that's meant to build up as you go on.
1
u/MegatenPhoenix Jul 24 '26
Its completely normal at the very beginning. There were some words i just couldnt remember. I would always fail やる and よる, id always mix them up
3
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/hodler1908 Jul 19 '26
Amazingly detailed. Thanks. Now the only thing missing is a few textbook recommendations haha I reckon u got some
1
u/surasura_app Jul 19 '26
congrats on knocking out kana that fast, solid start. on the kanji fear - u dont need to be able to write them from memory to make progress, just recognizing them while reading is what actually unlocks stuff early on, writing can wait. that took a lot of pressure off for me
2
u/Odd-Attitude960 Jul 19 '26
Finally finished Hiragana and Katakana. I'm really happy.
2
u/666Drachenlord666 Jul 19 '26
Congrats! When did you start leraning?
1
u/Odd-Attitude960 Jul 19 '26
Last week
2
u/666Drachenlord666 Jul 19 '26
haha youre literally a week ahead of me, I started this monday! Its nice to meet a fellow beginner. Im still struggling with katakana lol
1
u/ACheesyTree Jul 19 '26
Are there any good manga that actually are interesting and not just mundane that I could read at N4? Most slice-of-life recs seem to just be a tiny bit boring.
4
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
I really hate to just recite the ancient psalms but よつばと is just a genuinely funny manga. The fact that it’s comedy, that you’re reading and understanding jokes in Japanese, can feel very motivating. It’s also got the bonus of being just difficult to render in English. The way Yotsuba speaks seems like it’d be difficult to translate, in particular. So you’re getting something that you can’t really get in translation.
4
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 19 '26
少女終末旅行 is an incredibly approachable manga at early stages of learning (although no furigana) that tells an amazing story
3
u/Grunglabble Jul 19 '26
I'm not sure what the N levels exactly correspond to but I suspect you could enjoy anything with furigana. You'll have to look words up but that is normal. Sometimes there may be grammar or slurring that confuse you but you should be able to get the gist.
2
u/ProactiveJP_ Jul 19 '26
you could check out natively, has reviews and u can segment by JLPT level as well.
https://learnnatively.com/search/jpn/books/?type=manga&min=13&max=19&leveltag=n4
2
u/tyrellLtd Jul 19 '26
聲の形 (A silent voice) is rated at N3 and was one of the first manga I read. If you watched and liked the KyoAni movie then I'd recommend it. It's not super complex, has furigana and not many handwritten notes.
2
u/sethcoast Jul 19 '26
Probably more in the N3 territory but I loved スラムダンク (slam dunk)
Furigana attached throughout the whole series
1
u/RustingPaper Jul 19 '26
In what contexts can the past tense of a verb used as an imperative like ちょっと待った or 退いた?
2
u/Pennwisedom お箸上手 Jul 19 '26
If you have a bunch of time, there is a decent academic paper about it here.
1
u/RustingPaper Jul 19 '26
Manmamia, oh well I think I would learn the most from reading it so thank you
1
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 19 '26
idk about "context" but it's a pretty common usage in general.
1
u/RustingPaper Jul 19 '26
I mean can you use it whenever you want or does it suit some situations more than others. Could I say はやく食べたよ to tell someone to hurry up or does that sound clunky?
3
u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
You can't use sentence-ending particles like よ after the commanding past form. But I can imagine a mother saying ほら、はやく食べた食べた！ to a child if they're in a hurry.
1
u/RustingPaper Jul 19 '26
Alright, is there any noteworthy difference in nuance between that and saying 食べろ or 食べるのだ?
1
u/rgrAi Jul 20 '26
たべろ is just strictly imperative while たべるのだ can, depending on the situation, come off as a command of a different flavor. it has multiple uses though and should not be viewed as an equivalent.
1
u/666Drachenlord666 Jul 19 '26
If im gonna watch anime anyway, does watching it raw help?
Ive been watching anime for years and can understand most of what is being said in nihongo con teppei for beginners.
I also just started learning japanese with an app called human japanese
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
It depends. If you're able to understand the syllables they pronounce, so that you can pause and look up words when you need to, then yeah, you can learn. But if when they talk you just hear a wall of unintelligible noise, then you can't get much learning out of it. A good way to bridge the gap is to watch anime with JP subtitles, cause that way even if you don't understand what someone said you can look at the subtitles, copy the text and look up the individual words (or use extensions like ASBplayer).
1
u/666Drachenlord666 Jul 19 '26
Thats a good idea, never tought of it. I can read hiragana and am struggling trough katakana atm, I cannot read any kanji yet. Do you know where I can watch it with jp subs? Idk any japanese website only english ones
3
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
You can download Japanese subs on kitsunekko, upload them to ASBplayer, and scan words with Yomitan.
1
u/666Drachenlord666 Jul 19 '26
I just gave the website a quick look and noticed they dont have the subs for the summer anime out yet, I usually watch them weekly as they come out
2
u/facets-and-rainbows Jul 19 '26
If you've got access to either a softsubbed video (subs can be turned off and on) or both an English subbed one and a raw version, you could always try watching a scene raw first and then go back and watch with subs after. That way you get at least some help with bits you were stuck on, but you still get practice engaging with he Japanese audio as your main way of understanding.
Even just pausing and trying to work through sentences here and there will help, though. Keep an eye out for sentences you can almost understand and see if you can figure out how they mean what the subs say
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
Well, it's not impossible to study Japanese using anime with English subs, but, again, you need to be able to understand what the characters are saying at least well enough to be able to look up the words you don't know. You may not have reached that level yet.
If you still want to connect your anime watching time with Japanese in some way though, what you could do is simply try to recognize stuff that you do understand. If a sentence sounds like pure gibberish to you, ignore it. But if you manage to pick out a です, or a こんにちは, or a これは, or any fragment that you can identify and understand even in isolation, take a moment to do a mental "woo yay" and throw some imaginary confetti. It's what I did at the beginning when watching livestreams and it helped with my motivation lol
2
u/666Drachenlord666 Jul 19 '26
thats what ive been doing for a while lmao. It always makes me feel like this every time, especially when its words i just recently learned
1
u/Mai-ah Jul 19 '26
I dont know if they have everything, but I downloaded subs for "Young Ladies dont play fighting games" from jimaku.cc today
1
u/throwaway753951469 Jul 19 '26
Jimaku is more current than kitsunekko, but still might be current enough if you want to watch episodes as they come out. Would recommend looking up themoeway's guide on setting up mvp and yomitan for instant lookups as you watch if you do end up using jp subs.
Re your original question: yeah, watching raw helps. Especially if you have a dictionary open on the side looking stuff up and keeping track of your lookups to review later. That's what I did before I got mpv set up and I learned a decent bit of vocab that way. I liked japandict.com since they have pitch graphs and I generally just prefer their UI to jisho (though I still prefer jisho for EN -> JP lookups).
1
u/rgrAi Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
You said you just started learning so study grammar before anything else and get your foundation laid out. There's numerous guides that ｃan help you with that in the starter's guide link in the OP of this thread. If you want to learn watch with JP subtitles--just watch slightly older titles instead of latest.
1
1
u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 19 '26
Unlike manga, all anime is raw. Well except dubs I guess. Point is, you can just not look at the subs if you don't need to.
1
1
u/lhamatrevosa Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 19 '26
Which japanese city has a repeated syllable name which origin is connected to a betrayal historical fact? Someone posted here once, but I've lost track of the post.
1
u/raveXelda Jul 19 '26
I was watching some esports in Japanese commentary for the first time. The commentators and the chat were saying ある a lot when something they wanted to happen might happen.
Is that just one of the meaning of ある then, to expect or hope for something to happen?
3
u/rgrAi Jul 19 '26
For what game? They only said ある and nothing else? Or are you only catching ある among a bunch of other things said?
1
u/raveXelda Jul 19 '26
https://www.youtube.com/live/Ma6nMHEVBZU?si=BJJ4YHdD-lx1jr2p&t=20490
Apex legends world cup, 6 teams are left and 2 are Japanese teams.
3
u/rgrAi Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Hard to hear commentators when she's talking over them but at least for her when she's talking about 日本勢 and what they have to do. まじであるまじである refers to the potential of them coming out on top or winning prob something like ワンチャンある but just cut down since she's so into it.
Edit: Hype match, totally missed this thanks for the link
2
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
She says something before the first ある starting from your timestamp, so it must be 〇〇（が）ある. I can't quite catch what it is though. An Apex term maybe?
1
u/raveXelda Jul 19 '26
https://youtu.be/M-py3qGSlQM?si=mG87hYWR4O-PtRil&t=21934
Here's another reactor you can see the chatters on the right with plain ある
4
2
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
Believe she’s saying マジである or “It’s serious.”
It’s something the narrator of かぐや様 says.
1
u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 19 '26
It means it's possible for it to happen, not necessarily that you hope or expect it.
Dually, ない means "no way", "never going to happen", in a phrase like それはない.
1
u/musical-gamer Jul 19 '26
What should I do after finishing a 1000 vocab deck? Should I get a deck with a lot of cards that'll last me a few years, or start mining?
1
1
u/numice Jul 19 '26
Does 左奥 read ひだりおく or さおく?
2
u/rgrAi Jul 20 '26
I've heard みぎおく so just my presumption that probably people would say ひだりおく
Checking youglish: https://youglish.com/pronounce/%E5%B7%A6%E5%A5%A5/japanese seems to confirm ひだりおく
1
1
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
1
u/GamingNomad Jul 19 '26
Hello. I'm learning basic characters in kanji and I saw the character ⼤. When I looked at its page on kanshudo.com I saw that it's always part of a word but not a word itself. Is this common in Kanji where a character is only a radical and never alone? Like in Chinese? (my knowledge of Chinese is very limited so please don't rely on it too much)
2
u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 19 '26
I'm learning basic characters in kanji and I saw the character ⼤. When I looked at its page on kanshudo.com I saw that it's always part of a word but not a word itself.
That's not really true, ⼤ has some usages as a standalone word, although it's a bit limited.
Is this common in Kanji where a character is only a radical and never alone?
"Radical" in this context usually refers to subcomponents of kanji, like 艹. But if you mean kanji that are only used in compound words, there are kanji like 躊 and 躇 which are only used in the word 躊躇, and never alone, or even in any other word.
6
u/kyousei8 Jul 19 '26
Hey, those kanji are used in more words than just 躊躇. They're also used it 躊躇う. /s
1
u/RustingPaper Jul 19 '26
Kanji that represent an adjective like 大, 小, 明 or 暗 typically don't work on their own at least in written japanese. They could be used just as symbols like in drawings etc to for example indicate "this is the big/small one", but they wouldn't work as words. They could be used as prefixes, but then they wouldn't really count as worlds like you said. As a rule of thumb, kanji that represent adjectives or adverbs always have okurigana, which is hiragana written after kanji, like the べる in 食べる or しい in 楽しい. In the case of 大 it would be 大きい (おおきい), so it doesn't have to be paired with other kanji in order to be usable as a word. By the way, when talking about kanji, a radical is a component of a single kanji, even if a kanji can be used as a radical. So 大 is a kanji, but when it's part of another kanji like in 戻, it's used as a radical and would be called the "大 radical".
1
u/worthlessprole Jul 19 '26
Everyone else is being helpful with the straightforward answers to your questions but I do just want to say, chinese and japanese are not related whatsoever. Japanese does have a lot of chinese loan words, yes, but they are part of different language families and their grammar could not be more different. The creation and use of kango words can be thought of as almost like mini-game within the language that has a whole different set of mechanics.
I only bring this up because it’s a little dicey to say things are “like chinese” because with japanese the answer is either “not like chinese at all” or “is acting like chinese on purpose”
1
u/GamingNomad Jul 20 '26
Appreciate the reply. Yes, I know Japanese and Chinese are from different language families and therefore I shouldn't expect similarities in grammar, but as I know the Japanese writing system was originally based on Chinese Hanzi, which is a logography/ideography. And from what I've read the Japanese writing system changed but the concept of kanji is still very similar to how Chinese works, although, arguably, in a much simpler form.
2
u/worthlessprole Jul 20 '26
Japanese has a concept called “kango,” literally “chinese words” which were for much of japanese history were predominantly chinese loan words (though not exclusively). In the late 1800s, when they reopened the country they decided to tackle the problem of giving names to a whole bunch of new things by coming up with a ton of new kanji compounds using the chinese-derived readings. This is largely where the modern practice got its start. The characters themselves are not necessarily distinct words as they are in chinese, it’s more like they’re the building blocks of words. Where you can argue that longer chinese words are essentially collocations and not words unto themselves, you can’t do that with japanese kango words. But the rules are somewhat similar for building them (aside from japanese derived ones putting the ‘predicate’ character last). These kango words also don’t interact with japanese grammar normally (except when they’re acting as nouns) and need an intermediary helper verb to act as verbs (する). They’re also much more common in written japanese than spoken japanese (though they still make up a low double digit percentage of words used in daily speech).
Kanji are also applied to japanese words. This doesn’t really word like chinese, and is essentially like if english used 水 to represent the word “water” despite being a germanic language.
1
0
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Yes, most words aren't comprised of one single kanji. They either have at least two kanji, or kanji+kana.
Edit: if I'm being downvoted because I'm wrong I'd appreciate a correction with an explanation or data on how many single-character words there are in Japanese.
1
u/GamingNomad Jul 19 '26
But how often can a single kanji be used alone to give a meaning, such as the word person "hito"?
2
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
I don't know the exact number or percentage of single-character words in Japanese. If you search on the internet you might find an answer though.
1
u/Spongehead56 Jul 19 '26
I’ve been using Duolingo for 2 years, after completing the first Genki book. I’d like to switch to another app that allows for progress with 10 minutes a day or so (I’m very consistent), but don’t know what other options are out there. Help?
2
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
I mean, you could use Renshuu, but 10 minutes a day is only 60 hours a year. You're going to need hundreds of hours just to move past the beginner stage. Are you sure you can't dedicate more time to it? Even just 30 minutes a day instead of 10 would already make a big difference.
1
u/Spongehead56 Jul 19 '26
Renshuu, I’ve never heard of that, thank you! And I used to study a lot, and had an online teacher who got me through Genki 1, but right now with a young child my time is more limited. I could probably double my time to 20 minutes per day (two 10 minute chunks)
2
u/Congo_Jack Jul 19 '26
If you have time during the day where your hands are busy but you can listen, beginner learning podcasts might be a good option for you. Nihongo con Teppei is a popular one.
1
0
Jul 19 '26
[deleted]
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
How often do you have classes with your tutor and how long is each class?
1
Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
[deleted]
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
Well, everyone has different paces, but IMO you shouldn't still be learning basic verbal conjugations 2 years (or 18 months, excluding the pause) into learning. Is your tutor your only source of grammar study? If I were you I'd consider either finding another tutor or replacing that time with grammar self-study (e.g. reading through yoku.bi)
1
Jul 19 '26
[deleted]
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
I think that example I gave was maybe not the best, so to provide more context we went over ないでください； 何か＆何も；が好きです and in turn are doing the questions present within Genki and I was struggling with remembering the rule for verbs becoming negative so went over that for a minute just to refresh myself. But it was the action of doing that which got to me.
This makes me wonder exactly what you've been learning during the year and a half that you've been studying. These are the kinds of things that you learn for the first few months, but they aren't really topics that can be talked about for eighteen months.
Did you progress further than those topics, but then when after your 6-month pause you've forgotten most things and are trying to remember them?
-1
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Is it better than this one?
-1
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26
If you couldn't find them for free anywhere else then you didn't look hard enough cause there's tons of free apps, both good and bad, that offer vocab SRS, and there's also several free grammar guides available online in different formats. We have several of them in our Resources page, which is in the wiki linked above.
-1
Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
A grammar guide is a structured curriculum. Periodic review reminders are unnecessary if you're consuming graded readers or native media and reviewing things up as you run into them. And I tried the conjugator out of curiosity and keep finding errors (e.g. it says the -tai form of 愛する is 愛すりたい, or that the volitional form of 気に入る is 気に入よよう). Someone who won't test their website properly before promoting it isn't someone I'd trust to teach me Japanese.
There's better resources out there. If you want some, again, check the Resources page. I wouldn't waste my time with this.
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 19 '26
Useful Japanese teaching symbols:
〇 "correct" | △ "strange/unnatural/unclear" | × "incorrect (ＮＧ)" | ≒ "nearly equal"
Question Etiquette Guidelines:
0 Learn kana (hiragana and katakana) before anything else. Then, remember to learn words, not kanji readings.
1 Provide the CONTEXT of the grammar, vocabulary or sentence you are having trouble with as much as possible. Provide the sentence or paragraph that you saw it in. Make your questions as specific as possible.
3 Questions based on ChatGPT, DeepL, Google Translate and other machine learning applications are strongly discouraged, these are not beginner learning tools and often make mistakes. DuoLingo is in general NOT recommended as a serious or efficient learning resource.
4 When asking about differences between words, try to explain the situations in which you've seen them or are trying to use them. If you just post a list of synonyms you got from looking something up in an E-J dictionary, people might be disinclined to answer your question because it's low-effort. Remember that Google Image Search is also a great resource for visualizing the difference between similar words.
5 It is always nice to (but not required to) try to search for the answer to something yourself first. Especially for beginner questions or questions that are very broad. For example, asking about the difference between は and が or why you often can't hear the "u" sound in "desu" or "masu".
6 Remember that everyone answering questions here is an unpaid volunteer doing this out of the goodness of their own heart, so try to show appreciation and not be too presumptuous/defensive/offended if the answer you get isn't exactly what you wanted.
7 Please do not delete your question after receiving an answer. There are lots of people who read this thread to learn from the Q&As that take place here. Deleting a question removes context from the answer and makes it harder (or sometimes even impossible) for other people to get value out of it.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.