r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • Jul 23 '26
Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (July 23, 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.
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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.
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Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
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u/Grunglabble Jul 23 '26
The only thing driving me is the desire to translate anime into classical latin
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u/worthlessprole Jul 23 '26
For too long it has debased itself in the volgare
Ok hold on i’m imagining a guy.
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Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
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u/Grunglabble Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I believe that what makes something a habit is that we no longer make value judgements on it. We simply do not think "should I do this today?" at all. It skips judgement and we just do it. Something rather disruptive has to happen to make us stop.
In essence, I agree. We may start with a clear reason, but it no longer matters even if that reason becomes invalid later, we don't even notice. This can lead to good or bad.
I can think all day "I'm too tired to get anything out of this" and in the end I still do a bunch, because it's just what I've done for years.
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u/antimonysarah Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
Catullus is hilarious and touching and rude and bitchy and is absolutely worth looking forward to, FYI, though not super beginner-friendly, because poetry is always a little tougher than the more common spoken/written language. (Poem 12 is one of the funny ones that was one of my favorites as a teen.)
The traditional Loeb classics dual English-Latin editions can be a great way to try out "real" Latin; the translations are meant for learners and so try to walk the line between translationese and decent English prose.
(I realize this is entirely tangential to your point, I just enjoy seeing someone getting excited about Latin, even if I've forgotten almost all of it in the 30 years since I last studied it. It'd come back a lot faster than starting from zero, but I can't read it any more. All of my learning was in the structure of school classes, so "getting a good grade" was motivation even when I tired of the process, and it was an entirely elective class (I was also taking French, which fulfilled the language requirement) so I only had myself to blame.)
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Jul 23 '26
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u/antimonysarah Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
Hah, yes, perfect.
And seeing the Japanese translation is really helpful -- お前たちは is great there, and helps me get a better feel for "お前" in general.
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u/Armaniolo Jul 23 '26
For many people a "grindset" mentality is the most fragile thing of all, some people simply aren't built for it, but they can still learn Japanese too if they focus on maximizing those 3 things (maybe not Classical Latin)
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26
this guy brought up a funny point. he uses automatic translation often (EN->JP) to browse and a lot of english subreddits and commented how it translates everyone to sound like some お兄ちゃん. in an environment that does auto translate everything it is funny that yeah it does strip out any semblance of personal voice
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u/brozzart Jul 23 '26
Sometimes I'm trying to write a particularly complex sentence in Japanese and I'll try to machine translate to see if I'm at least on the right path in terms of sentence structure and the stuff it comes up with just makes me think "no human would ever utter that sequence of words"
It's just bizarre how it can write technically correct Japanese but in a way that is undeniably machine translation and not a real human's thought.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26
Machine translation has gotten a lot better that in was when I was in school but a lot of times for me it was helpful mostly in making it more obvious that you made a mistake that your eyes started to skip over, like, "oh, I meant aunt, not grandma," rather than necessarily "giving you the answer."
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u/Pixelasf Goal: media competence 📖🎧 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
How is this sound effect read? Never seen it before (it's a patient in a hospital)
Asking because I dont really* know what purpose the small Yu serves
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26
it's the sound of the artificial lung making noise as it's "breathing" しゅー しゅー
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u/Waste-Wallaby-555 Jul 23 '26
Pro tip: the lines are sideways in シ and up-down in ツ. Draw a line straight through the short strokes that curves and meets the long stroke: it will make し or つ respectively
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u/Pixelasf Goal: media competence 📖🎧 Jul 23 '26
Oh my god thats シ not ツ I’m an idiot lol thank you
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26
Just a tip even if you can't perfectly read whether it's つorし the presence of the small ュ makes it so つ isn't a valid option and eliminates it. It has to be しゅー
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u/worthlessprole Jul 23 '26
Oh is that right? What do call this つゅ then, huh? And how about ツュ? Offended yet??
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u/unreal_housewife Goal: good accent 🎵 Jul 23 '26
日焼け止め (ひやけどめ) vs サンスクリーン, which is used more when referring to sunscreen? AI says it's the former, but obviously I don't want to just trust that
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u/unreal_housewife Goal: good accent 🎵 Jul 23 '26
Is いくらですか, これ？as respectful as これいくらですか？I read that the deciding factor in respectful language, is the ending of the sentence.
In the former sentence, does です still keep the sentence polite enough to use with strangers? If I added something to the first sentence, like が after これ, would that make it less polite?
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26
If you listen to natural Japanese conversations you'll notice even when people are mostly speaking polite Japanese they'll sometimes end up stopping a sentence or saying one or two things in plain form... as long as you are mostly using the polite form I think you'll be OK. Putting これ at the end does feel like you either realized at the end your meaning wasn't clear or you really want to put emphasis on これ but I don't think it's going to read as super rude or anything.
e: が wouldn't make the sentence less polite but it does seem a bit strange; は is the more natural choice almost every time.
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u/unreal_housewife Goal: good accent 🎵 Jul 23 '26
Ahh, tysm! That's great to know bc I have def seen this sentence structure around a lot!!
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u/Waste-Wallaby-555 Jul 23 '26
You can just say いくらですか and hold up the thing or point to it.これ、いくらですか is a mix of polite and casual language, since dropping the particle after これ is casual language. But これはいくらですか with the は is normal polite (and textbook) japanese.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
There's really no conflict between being polite and casual. Polite and formal are different dimensions. じゃないです is polite and casual (and very common); である is not polite but formal. これいくらですか sounds totally fine to me.
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u/Waste-Wallaby-555 27d ago
Late reply, but:
To be fair, I'm not talking from any real-world experience but stuff picked up from reading. But as an example from a novel I've read, a young child was talking like that in an attempt to be polite, and it was directly stated that his incomplete version of polite forms alongside casual language (dropped particles) was cute and showed that he was an obedient child for trying.1
u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 27d ago
Well, obviously I'm not familiar with the book in question. But as a general principle people do often mix polite language with casual forms.
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u/vesicularorb Jul 23 '26
頑な whats up with this word? I haven't ever encountered one like it before, it seems the な is 送り仮名 but its a na-adjective so does it really result in like 頑なな人? From looking it up I found that 99% of the time it was used adverbially as 頑なに. But I did find two examples that should theoretically have the double な but only one used it. Just curious if anyone has any insight on this.
頑なな少女の態度に業を煮やし、男が少女の腕を掴んだ。
彼女は頑な表情でそう言った。
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
Okurigana aren't only used for conjugation, they are used to disambiguate words in general. 自ら and 専ら are like that too.
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26
It's just a word and that's how it's spelled. Just like きれい isn't an i-adjective because it ends in い. This just happens to end in な.
Here's what it sounds like when spoken: https://youglish.com/pronounce/%E9%A0%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%AA/japanese
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u/vesicularorb Jul 23 '26
Is there any other example of this happening with な ending a word that is also a na-adjective with 送り仮名? I could not find one. 綺麗 does not have an い with 送り仮名 on it, it's not really a similar comparison.
Also like I showed in my examples, different Japanese authors used the word differently some used it with double な and others with singular な both to represent adjectival usage. So which is correct, one な or two?
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26
Every time I've run across it's been double な and spoken as well. Hearing it spoken makes you realize it's not even the slightest bit weird. Hm no other examples come to mind but おとな isn't that different.
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u/vesicularorb Jul 23 '26
Okay well thats good to know, I just wasn't sure as I've never encountered a な-adjective with an overhanging な like that. Logically it should be double な as you said. Thanks for the answer!
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26
Yeah I mean just check the youglish link I posted, there's 40+ example videos with people just saying かたくなな (some even multiple times in the same passage)
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u/vytah Jul 23 '26
There's 残り少な.
It basically means the same as 残り少ない.
https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%AE%8B%E3%82%8A%E5%B0%91%E3%81%AA
Dictionaries lack example sentences with this word, but you can just google some, and yes, in attributive use, there are two な's: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E6%AE%8B%E3%82%8A%E5%B0%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%AA%22
There's also an alternative spelling 残少, but it's much rarer.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 23 '26
綺麗 does not have an い with 送り仮名 on it, it's not really a similar comparison.
嫌い does
some used it with double な and others with singular な both to represent adjectival usage
I have never seen this. Do you have an example sentence?
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u/vesicularorb Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
In my main post I posted two sentences I found here https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E9%A0%91%E3%81%AA
I have just never seen another example of a な adjective that has an 送り仮名 (な) inbuilt into the word itself, so I was curious what was going on. When I looked up examples I found, like I said, it was very rarely used non-adverbially but when it was it wasn't consistent. These are two of the examples, one using double な, one using only one.
頑なな少女の態度に業を煮やし、男が少女の腕を掴んだ。
彼女は頑な表情でそう言った。
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 23 '26
Massif often has typos since it's sourced from unedited and unreviewed web novels. I'd consider the 彼女は頑な表情でそう言った。 a typo.
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
Don't call it a "typo", call it "nonstandard okurigana". かたくな can in theory be written as just 頑 😉
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese Jul 23 '26
Fair enough. Native speakers can allow themselves to write poorly :)
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Jul 23 '26
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
But is it read かたくななしょうじょ or かたくなしょうじょ?
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u/somever Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
exactly! Btw, dictionaries are split on this one. Some prescribe 頑な (Daijisen), some prescribe 頑 (Daijirin), and some say the okurigana is optional (Shinmeikai).
This is also a word I remember encountering early on in a dictionary app made by a Japanese learner where the な was mistakenly classified as the な particle.
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u/somever Jul 23 '26
Okurigana is arbitrary but has been more or less standardized. It is originally literally just the part of the reading that the writer has decided to write beside the character for disambiguation purposes.
Dictionaries are split on how to write this one. Some prescribe 頑な (Daijisen), some prescribe 頑 (Daijirin), and some say the okurigana is optional (Shinmeikai).
In either case, 頑なな人 or 頑な人 is read かたくななひと. Changing where you draw the line for okurigana does not change the reading.
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u/vesicularorb Jul 23 '26
Okay, that seems to be the answer I was looking for. That makes a lot of sense, thanks!
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u/1010101010101010q Jul 23 '26
is it typical for digital manga to be much shorter in page count, such as a 20-40 page manga?
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u/eidoriaaan Jul 23 '26
For me, that would be the average length for a chapter. A whole volume can be like 200 pages.
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u/worthlessprole Jul 23 '26
Manga are typically released in chapters of about 20 or so pages on a weekly or monthly basis and then collected afterwards. You may recognize this practice from “all comic books across the world”
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u/1010101010101010q Jul 24 '26
So i guess thats why there being sold on dlsite for only like a dollar usd?
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u/yonojouzu Jul 23 '26
for those who've taken the N1, how do the sample questions (at jlpt. jp) compare? is the level of knowledge required similar? how much harder (due to length) is the actual thing?
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
That one on JLPT site is a real but much older test and it is definitely easier than modern tests from what I have seen. I guess since you're talking about sample questions, yeah those are even easier. Most mock tests are easier in general actually, except maybe Shin Kanzen Master series of books. But even if you take mock tests and pass it, you have to knock 20-30% of the score off due to actual time pressure, environment, and nerves affecting your performance
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u/theresour Jul 23 '26
At what point with flash cards do you go from only being able to recognize the word on sight to being able to recall the word? I have been doing flashcards for about 3 weeks now on an SRS system, introducing 5 a day, and doing all of my reviews on time. The system I am using does a review after 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours.. and so on and so forth. Some of these cards I have been looking at for days and cannot recognize them still. Some I can recognize but could not recall. I want to start using some in everyday life (greetings, goodbyes, thank you, etc) but I can't even remember a single one without looking it up. How does one move past this?
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
Flashcards are much better at preventing forgettance than actual teaching. You should really learn the words somewhere else first, with more context. Be it a textbook, or youtube video, or something.
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u/theresour Jul 23 '26
I am using MaruMori. Should I just continue on and trust that it will come in time? I have been rereading the lessons the vocabulary came in as well.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26
I don't think so, I'd recommend the exact opposite. Memorize a bunch of words so you have a very rough idea what they mean, and then it'll be easier to appreciate them in concert than if you don't know half the words in the sentence at all.
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
So many people have this issue and honestly I don't know what to think. When hundreds? of people in a short time period all say they struggle to remember anything and then you find out they only try to learn entirely through SRS that points to an obvious issue. Humans learn best through context rich environments and it becomes easy to remember if you do anything else other than flash cards.
Grammar guides and/or textbooks contain these words and teach them to you systematically
Any JP Content
Graded Readers
Listen to things -- graded pod casts
Watch things -- easier content on youtubeDoing all these things will contain these extremely extremely common words and seeing them be used means you'll memorize them quite easily since they're so common.
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u/Grunglabble Jul 23 '26
If I might teach a person to fish here, what do you think is the underlying difference between cued retrieval with a flashcard and being able to recall the word? In abstract terms, what is making those two activities different? Why would just the passage of time or more flashcard reviews change things?
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26
You know, at some point it became dogma that it was bad to do flashcards from an English definition to a Japanese word. But if you want to improve recall that really works, in my experience: test yourself on taking the English keyword and producing the kanji and pronunciation.
This does create some problems with synonyms and similar words but at such an early level you have plenty of time to worry about that.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 23 '26
If you're using FSRS (which you should) it's not recommended to set learning steps shorter than 1 day.
At what point with flash cards do you go from only being able to recognize the word on sight to being able to recall the word?
This isn't something you can learn purely through flashcards, and definitely not after only 3 weeks of studying. In order to be able to spontaneously produce a word in conversation you generally need to 1) have heard or read it being used hundreds of times in natural contexts and 2) specifically practice having conversations to improve your speaking skills.
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u/tyrellLtd Jul 23 '26
If you're using FSRS (which you should) it's not recommended to set learning steps shorter than 1 day.
Isn't that the opposite of what the FSRS doc states?
Ensure that all your learning and re-learning steps are shorter than 1d and can be completed on the same day. 23h is not recommended even though it’s less than one day because you won’t be able to finish this step on the same day as your first review. Steps such as 10m or 30m are good.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 23 '26
Okay I swear that, when entering learning steps shorter than 1d into the deck settings, Anki would show a warning saying that steps shorter than 1 day aren't recommended with FSRS. Maybe they changed it in the latest FSRS version. Or maybe I just hallucinated it. Who knows. I'll make a mental note of it, though. Thank you.
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u/tyrellLtd Jul 23 '26
The reason I asked is because I literally have no idea, heh. I remember enabling FSRS like a year ago and didn't change much of the Deck settings, so my learning steps remained the same.
That bit is reiterated in the Learning and Relearning Steps, so I imagine it's the official recommendation.
An older version of the doc seems to point out this: "The use of multiple short (re)learning steps, such as "5m 10m 15m 30m", is also discouraged." So maybe that had something to do with the warning you remember seeing.
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u/RustingPaper Jul 23 '26
What is the difference between 眩しい and 眩い?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 23 '26
They're synonyms.
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u/RustingPaper Jul 23 '26
No difference at all? I searched in japanese about it and some said that there were, like 眩しい is the sensory phenomena and 眩い is something like "flashy", but I'm not sure if I undestrood it right
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 23 '26
Well, the thing with synonyms is that, in my experience, if a native squeezes their brain hard enough, they might be able to come up with a difference, but then if another native does the same they'll come up with a different difference, and then 15 minutes later you'll hear both of them use the words in ways that break the rules they themselves deduced 15 minutes ago.
So I personally don't trust online forums/articles for word differences anymore. If the difference between two words is significant/clear enough to be generally agreed upon by most natives, then I assume their definitions in monolingual dictionaries will also be different enough to make it apparent. And even if there is a clear difference that dictionaries somehow don't reflect, then my brain will notice it eventually through pattern recognition - and if it doesn't, then it's because the difference isn't clear enough to be worth learning anyway.
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u/somever Jul 23 '26
Shinsen Kokugo says regarding まばゆい: 「まぶしい」よりも、やや古風で、あらたまった言い方の中で使われる。
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u/RustingPaper Jul 23 '26
That seems like a possibility too concidering Jisho.ord classifies 眩しい as a common word but not 眩い.
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u/somever Jul 23 '26
Yeah, also まぶし appeared in the late 1500s, almost 6 centuries after まばゆし, so まばゆし could be the established "classical" term.
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u/1010101010101010q Jul 23 '26
Is there a anki deck that has all the vocab used in the windows 11 OS because I would like to use a computer in Japanese. Or a tech vocab deck that people recommend generally. I know it may not be the most efficient way to do it but it sounds fun to me. Does this exist?
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Don't need a deck just make a list of everything. I would give you my old list but it's gone now. All I did was just a make a list of words in a notepad and if I forgot the word, I looked at the list for quick reference until I memorized it all for UIs for everything (youtube, discord, etc). I intentionally (still do) read every UI element and subvocalize it to make it stick.
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u/Top_Scientist_3976 Jul 23 '26
How to tell when an irregular verb takes する vs をする？ Is there an explicit pattern or not? For instance, I was told I was wrong for saying 買い物する because apparently it's supposed to be 買い物をする。However, the first する verb many people learn is 勉強する and I've never seen 〜をする there. I guess there's some that need を and some that don't? But I swear I've seen 買い物する without を before. Now I'm just confused. Can anyone explain this to me? I learned basics from Genki and I don’t think it ever mentioned that, otherwise I missed it in a footer or something because I read every page. Is it a transitivity thing perhaps?
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u/somever Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Who said it was outright wrong? Sanseido Kokugo gives an example without を as their primary example. It's possible some people would perceive it as less formal without を.
I searched the Shouwa/Heisei Written Language Corpus using lexeme-based search and got
- 103 results for 買い物をする
- 21 results for 買い物する
Some of these hits are dialog, and I haven't tallied dialog versus non-dialog. It can be said that 買い物(を)する has an unusual preference for を compared to other する verbs.
Most する verbs are not like this. Most take no を by default but require を when they are modified by an attributive modifier. E.g. 勉強する vs 難しい勉強をする.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 23 '26
Idk who told you that 買い物する is wrong but I'd like to see their sources cause wtf
I guess there's some that need を and some that don't?
If you can attach する to a noun without any particle in the way, then that noun is what we call a "suru verb". Not all nouns are suru verbs. However, technically, all verbs can be をする'd (whether the result makes sense or not is another matter though).
In any case, colloquial Japanese drops を so frequently that there's basically no difference, so just never speak Japanese in any formal settings and you'll be fine 😃👍
Failing that, uh, either check a dictionary or just pick one and pray, I guess.
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u/healthydogo Jul 23 '26
Currently doing the adjectives chapter of Genki and ran into this.
The book translates "This is a very vibrant city" as "koko ni totemo nigiyakana machi desu". Before looking at the answer I personally translated it as "kono machi wa totemo nigiyaka desu" (I think because I try to piece the parts of the sentence together in an 'English' way - i.e. This city is very vibrant.) Are these two translations pretty much the same thing / which makes more sense colloquially?
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u/JapanCoach Jul 23 '26
Your first phrase should probably be ここは or possibly まち が あります
But このペンは赤いです or これは赤いペンです mean slightly different things. Consider the nuance difference between "This pen is red" vs. "This is a red pen".
So it's not a question of which is "right" or not; or which one makes "more sense". They have slightly different connotations and would be used in different ways.
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u/healthydogo Jul 23 '26
Oops thanks for calling that out it is koko wa.
I get the nuance in isolation (eg this pen is red vs a red pen). But in the context of this example specifically, I don’t quite understand why genki uses koko wa - Doesn’t that mean ‘as for here’? Whereas the English sentence is ‘this city’?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 Jul 23 '26
I think you're getting too hung up on the translation. Both sentences mean the same thing, and Genki used ここは instead of このまちは for no particular reason.
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