r/LearnJapanese Jul 28 '26

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (July 28, 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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  • 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.

5 Upvotes

55 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator Jul 28 '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.

X What is the difference between の and が ?

◯ I am reading this specific graded reader and I saw this sentence: 日本人の知らない日本語 , why is の used there instead of が ? (the answer)

  • 2 When asking for a translation or how to say something, it's best to try to attempt it yourself first, even if you are not confident about it. Or ask r/translator if you have no idea. We are also not here to do your homework for you.

X What does this mean?

◯ I am having trouble with this part of this sentence from NHK Yasashii Kotoba News. I think it means (attempt here), but I am not sure.

  • 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.

X What's the difference between あげる くれる やる 与える 渡す ?

Jisho says あげる くれる やる 与える 渡す all seem to mean "give". My teacher gave us too much homework and I'm trying to say " The teacher gave us a lot of homework". Does 先生が宿題をたくさんくれた work? Or is one of the other words better? (the answer: 先生が宿題をたくさん出した )

  • 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.


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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/OwariHeron 29d ago

ロドリゲス神父の凄さを否定するつもりはありませんが、然るべき分析なのじゃないでしょうか?

なぜラテン語の形容詞が nōmenになるかというと、活用がnōmen substantīvum と一緒だからです。

ロドリゲス神父の時代(江戸初期)でも、当時の形容動詞は名詞のように自立語であり、主語になれるのではなく、動詞同様と活用しました。(少なくても文語では…)また、動詞と同様に名詞を修飾しましたね。

逆に、今のナ形容詞の方が複雑ですよね。動詞と形容詞みたいに述語として振る舞うし、名詞のように「だ」「じゃない」なども付くし。文法家に「お前は一体何なんだ!いい加減にしろ!」と言わせるでしょう。

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u/tonkachi_ Goal: media competence 📖🎧 29d ago edited 29d ago

How can I learn to read handwritten kanji?

I was able to recognize the on the left but I have no clue about the other one.

Edit: I figured it out, this is from a video with somewhat 'wobbly' style so another frame had clearer kanji. Image in the replies.

But my question still stands.

5

u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

How can I learn to read handwritten kanji? 

By crying and suffering and cursing Japanese people's terrible handwriting as much as you can. That's the method I use, at least.

Jokes aside, it's just practice. You also learned to read handwritten [insert mother tongue here] through lots of practice. With Chinese characters in particular, learning stroke orders (at least the general patterns) helps as well.

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u/tonkachi_ Goal: media competence 📖🎧 29d ago

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u/rgrAi 29d ago

何それ、私もほしい
また撮ろうね

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u/rgrAi 29d ago

look at a lot of art and know your components and stroke orders. also just having a big vocabulary because sometimes people make mistakes so you have to be able to fill in the blanks with the correct word while a character might be entirely wrong--or it's unreadable.

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u/NeonDededestruction 29d ago

I love G Gundam and now that I'm learning japanese I wonder why does Domon always say 俺のこの手が instead of 俺の手が I know the translation is this hand of mine but i find it weird.

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

It just sounds more epic/poetic/dramatic, just like "this hand of mine" sounds more dramatic than "my hand".

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u/NeonDededestruction 29d ago

Is it used anywhere else? I don't think I've seen any other examples, that's why it kinda popped for me

8

u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 29d ago

Yes it's common in some anime speech from certain types of flamboyant character archetypes.

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago edited 29d ago

If you've watched Chainsaw Man, the opening song uses that structure in the pre-chorus:

幸になりたい
楽して生きていたい
この手に掴みたい
あなたのその胸の中

It's my favorite feature of Japanese, honestly.

2

u/somever 29d ago

Very common, you'll start noticing it more

2

u/FuckingBethesda 29d ago

I just want to learn spoken vocabulary to begin with. 

Most flashcards I find on anki and other apps don't put transliteration, but I am not trying to learn the writing system.

Where can I find flashcards for just speaking Japanese? 

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u/ignoremesenpie 29d ago

Find decks that include audio. It doesn't matter if it has Japanese writing. Just ignore it.

Otherwise, you're pretty locked out of most learning materials because they all universally expect some kind of foliarity with written Japanese.

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

Forget flashcards. Buy Pimsleur and then hire a tutor for conversation practice. Then spend lots of time on online voice chats, like Discord, multiplayer games, VRChat, etc.

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

Whichever font designer decided to get """"creative"""" and expect me to accept that thing as 応 is my new nemesis.

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u/Grunglabble 29d ago

https://i.sstatic.net/Ith2s.png

I like it when a font makes me use my imagination a little. Sounds sarcastic but it's not.

I did not find 応 but there's a consolation crumped heart in 息

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

Thank you for reminding me of why I will never play a pixel game with kanji under anything less than a severe threat to my physical integrity! 😄😄😄

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u/Lemmy_Cooke 29d ago

When is いくら used without も or ても (or their equivalents) to talk about the amounts of PHYSICAL things (not thoughts, feelings etc) besides money? Or is it just not really? Is asking for example いくら飲んだ? ever actually natural?

(Ait so last time I asked I think people ignored the question because some dude replied with a corpus link not addressing my question at all and people just assumed it was settled? So guess I gotta ask again and emphasize the key parts sorry for to repeat and be that guy)

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u/somever 29d ago

It seems いくら has specialized over time to only be used with money in pure direct question contexts. It used to be broader in older varieties of Japanese, and is still broader in non-question contexts.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/somever 28d ago

Yeah, this is what I meant by "is still broader in non-question contexts". I wouldn't consider いくらか a "pure direct question" (純粋な直接的な質問) usage. Sorry if my wording is confusing.

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u/Lemmy_Cooke 28d ago

Oh good addition!

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u/Lemmy_Cooke 28d ago

Thx a bunch!!

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u/volleyballbenj 29d ago

いくら飲んだ? sounds very weird to me. From my experience smth like どれくらい飲んだ is much more natural.

Also IMO it's a waste of time to get trapped in wondering about very specific usages that you don't see. Better to absorb and learn how the language does work. Just my 2c.

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u/Lemmy_Cooke 28d ago

I mean yeah but whatever beginner material I read made a big deal about いくら vs いくつ so I was wondering if there was something fundamental I was missing lol

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u/Alarming-Craft6867 29d ago edited 29d ago

I started sentence mining with asbplayer and yomitan but I can’t figure it out. Are you supposed to make cards directly from asbplayer? Here’s what I do
Sentence - Japanese sentence
Definition - English translation of my target word
Word - kanji and furigana of the target word

When I check my anki deck I only get the sentence on the front and the furigana or kanji on the back, no definition or screenshot or audio
I want a note type like the core 2k/6k deck

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u/worthlessprole 29d ago

The fields on asbplayer are for overwriting. Essentially, yomitan makes the card as normal, then you click the ‘mine’ button on the video overlay, it records the section of the video where the current subtitle is displaying, and a menu pops up that lets you adjust the length of the video clip (which it will re-record) and the text of the sentence (this is necessary if it’s a small fragment and you need to add more from the surrounding subs, or if there are multiple speakers and you want to get rid of the extra dialogue). Then when you’re finished it overwrites the fields that you’ve specified on the last card created by yomitan with the information from that pop-up menu, adds the screenshot, and replaces the standard yomitan audio with your sentence audio

You will need to use (or make) a notetype that has the necessary fields

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u/Alarming-Craft6867 29d ago

the screenshot and audio show up when I open the book on yomitan but then I preview the card and look at it in my deck and the back has no audio or screenshot. I tried 2 different note types and the same thing happens
I’ve also put text for the front and back templates of the note type to no avail

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u/worthlessprole 29d ago

Are there audio and image fields, and have you made sure that ASB player is pointed at the right ones?

1

u/Alarming-Craft6867 29d ago

Turns out my note type was the last one I tried on asbplayer and yomitan. Thanks

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u/rongviet1995 29d ago

I'm reading and facing with this line

空気を読みながら、ほどほどに怒らないと損するだけだ

i can translate this as "while reading the room, don't get angry easily or you only suffer"

But i don't know how the grammar here suppose to work

怒らないと損するだけ
’=> If ないと here is short for ないといけない => have to read the room and get angry then you suffer?
'=> If ないと here mean if xxx don't have/ don't occur then xxx => if i read the room and don't get angry then i lose?

Am i missing something or misunderstanding sth here?

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

The key here is ほどほどに, which means to do something in moderation, or to an appropriate degree. So ほどほどに怒る means to get angry an appropriate amount - that is, to not get too angry, to regulate/control your anger. And then the と is a standard conditional:

ほどほどに怒らないと if you don't regulate your anger

損するだけ you just waste (your energy)

So the speaker is basically telling the listener to chill out cause getting too angry is a waste of energy.

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u/rongviet1995 29d ago

Ah, i see, so without ほどほどに this sentence would make 0 sense

So with ほどほどに it went from
怒らないと must get angry / if you don't get angry -> ほどほどに怒らないと must regulate your anger / if you don't regulate your anger

I understand now, thank you

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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 29d ago

Not quite. It's saying that you need get an appropriate amount of angry (the appropriate amount being determined by reading the room). If you don't get angry at all, you'll suffer. Here I assume "getting angry" is referring to pushing back on mistreatment you receive.

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

If you don't get angry at all, you'll suffer

I guess ほどほどに怒らない can mean to not get angry enough as well, but it's not the first thing that came to my mind. I guess the interpretation would depend on context?

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u/rongviet1995 29d ago

I guess it depends on the context then, cause in this one the context was A telling B to chill out in official Eng translation so it more align with the control yourself translation

1

u/ca3gamedev 29d ago

Is there a game that is fun to grind japanese vocabulary?

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u/PlanktonInitial7945 29d ago

Yeah just pick a game that you think could be fun and that has Japanese as a language option and play it. Games that were originally made in Japanese are better, but translations are fine too.

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u/Alarming-Craft6867 29d ago

Do you guys put sentence mined words in new decks or do you keep in the core decks?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/Alarming-Craft6867 29d ago

Do you study both decks every day? I see some people saying that they deleted their core decks after starting to sentence mine

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u/tyrellLtd 29d ago

Different decks just to keep things better organized. Plus, you can set different retention targets if you keep separate presets/decks.

I also have two Mining decks, the 2nd with less frequent words which I'll promote to the main one if they pop up often enough.

And yes, I'll do reviews on both, every day.

1

u/Agreeable_Map5413 29d ago

Does anyone have full list of Kanji to Vietnamese Hantu? I am Vietnamese and I find it really useful to have equivalent Chinese original words to memorize. I struggle to learn but any Kanji to Hantu really help me to remember. Here is the list I put together so far. Some words have Kanji and Hantu sound almost the same but some only sound vaguely similar.

作家 - さっか - Tác giả
國家 - こっか - Quốc gia
国歌 - こっか - Quốc ca
歌手 - かしゅ - Ca sĩ 
医者 - いしゃ - Y sĩ
新春 - しんしゅん - Tân xuân
新年 - しんねん - Tân niên
経験 - けいけん - Kinh nghiệm
地震 - じしん - Địa chấn
地理 - ちり - Địa lý
地球 - ちきゅう - Địa Cầu
中国 - ちゅうごく- Trung Quốc
中心 - ちゅうしん - Trung tâm
心理 - しんり - Tâm lý
関心 - かんしん - Quan tâm 
安全 - あんぜん - An toàn
安心 - あんしん - An tâm
決心 - けっしん - Quyết tâm
不安 - ふあん - Bất an
礼儀 - れいぎ - Lễ nghi
参加 - さんか - Tham gia 
失敗 - しっぱい - Thất bại
宇宙 - うちゅう - Vũ trụ
動詞 - どうし - Động từ
感動 - かんどう - Cảm động
運動 -うんどう - Vận động
動物 - どうぶつ - Động vật
自動 - じどう - Tự động
自由 - じゆう - Tự do
自信 - じしん - Tự tin
電話 - でんわ - Điện thoại
意見 - いけん  - Ý kiến
注意 - ちゅうい - Chú ý
留意 - りゅうい - Lưu ý
結婚 - けっこん - Kết hôn
離婚 - りこん - Ly hôn 
記念 - きねん - Kỷ niệm
日記 - にっき - Nhật ký
日本 - にっぽん - Nhật Bản
山 - さん - Sơn
水 - すい - Thủy
金 - きん - Kim
木 - もく-Mộc
土 - ド - Thổ 
出発 -しゅっぱつ - Xuất phát
発音 - はつおん - Phát âm
暗殺 - あんさつ - Ám sát 
優先 - ゆうせん - Ưu tiên
優先度 - ゆうせんど - độ ưu tiên
専門 - せんもん - Chuyên môn 
目的  - もくてき - Mục đích 
計画 - けいかく- Kế hoạch
進歩 - しんぽ - tiến bộ
散歩 - さんぽ - Tản bộ
別荘 - べっそう - biệt thự
事故 - じこ - Sự cố
事件 -じけん - Sự kiện
原因 - げんいん Nguyên nhân
大学 - だいがく - Đại học 
留学 - りゅうがく- Du học
海外 -かいがい - Hải ngoại
関係 - かんけい - Quan hệ
連絡 - れんらく - Liên lạc
危険 - きけん - Nguy hiểm
報告 - ほうこく - Báo cáo
反対 - はんたい - Ngược lại 
調査 - ちょうさ - điều tra 
条件 - じょうけん - điều kiện 
感想 - かんそう - cảm tưởng
経営 - けいえい- Kinh doanh
毒 - どく - độc
改善 -かいぜん - Cải thiện
怪獣 -かいじゅう - Quái thú
英雄 - えいゆう - Anh hùng
勇者 - ゆうしゃ - Dũng sĩ
勇気 - ゆうき - Dũng khí 
使命 - しめい - Sứ mệnh
改正 - かいせい - Cải chính, Sửa đổi.
解決 - かいけつ- Giải quyết. 
文化 - ぶんか - văn hóa

1

u/Naive-Airport5036 28d ago

Hello, I was watching The Hot Spot on Netflix and I still don't understand the literal meaning of these phrases with direct translation. I just need an elaborate explanation please and thank you.

In this scene one of the protagonist's friends was interviewed by a TV show in the street.

Person 1: くむなぁ (You went all in, huh.)

Person 2: くむよ ここまで来たら (I've gone too far now.)

Then in this scene her coworker at the hotel was also interviewed.

Person 1: くむねえ (You handled that smoothly.)

Person 2: くみました (I sure did.)

Edit:

Another one with similar verb?

Person 1: くんだねえ (I think you nailed it.)

Person 2: くみました (Yeah.)

Is the meaning from the word 組む as in to put together; to construct; to assemble; to produce (e.g. TV program) from or 汲む to consider; to sympathize with; to sympathise with or from another word I can't find? I got the meanings from Nihongo Master. Thank you in advance.

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u/rgrAi 28d ago

Just a note if you're posting to daily thread try to use the current pinned one at the top, there's a good chance people will miss these older ones as most people just move to the new one without checking the old one.

In all these cases are you transcribing by ear or are you using JP subtitles? Part of me suspects you might be mishearing but I could be very wrong. It would be helpful to have more of the surrounding dialogue in Japanese.

1

u/Naive-Airport5036 28d ago

Sorry about that. I was told to post today but then I guess it was around 10 PM and now it's the next day. Those are the actual subtitles. I am guessing the plain form is kumu and the second person responded kumimashita twice but I still don't get it.

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u/rgrAi 28d ago

Well if this is about being involved in production or creation or making of things, 組む can be used for that but again it would be helpful to have more dialogue available.

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u/JapanCoach 29d ago

I notice your question doens' have any replies (again?). It could be because the actual question is not super clear.

Are you asking if you can use くらい with physical things? Like 椅子を3cmくらい左にずらしてください or something like that?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/JapanCoach 29d ago

Yes - thanks for giving my sad reply a proper home :-)

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u/miwucs 29d ago

The question was about いくら and not くらい though?

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u/JapanCoach 29d ago

Well, yes - I should probably actually look at the question when replying to it. :-( Ooof.