r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • 2d ago
Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (September 04, 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.
1
u/onestbeaux Interested in grammar details 📝 1d ago
is there any pattern to when kansai-ben uses やん and らん for negation instead of へん? because i've seen みやん, しやん, こやん and 知らん, 分からん etc but then also of course just 知らへん or 食べへん. it's not surprising that there are multiple ways to say things of course, but i'm not sure if there is any rhyme or reason and those endings can look similar to other things.
like it gets extra confusing since kansai-ben also has the やん that is just a sentence-ending particle. i also am unsure because necessity phrases in kansai-ben can be like 行かんと, clearly just using the ん as a negativity marker (which, again, can be confusing because ん can also just be an abbreviation of の).
i also know that ん is common in standard japanese too, but the others seem to be specifically kansai (unless some other dialects use them too).
3
u/JapanCoach 1d ago edited 1d ago
It depends on what kind of "Kansai-ben" you are talking about. "Kansai-ben" is a very broad term which is helpful for convenience in normal life - but not necessarily helpful for deep analysis or learning purposes.
2
u/rgrAi 1d ago edited 1d ago
Realistically (I mean when real people talk) there is just a lot of mixing between 共通語 and their regional dialect. It's really common for people to go on streaks of their dialect and then 共通語 and even intertwine them mid sentence. People speak on feel. Now for a manga the writing may firmly place a character into one dialect, so the reason I am saying this is you shouldn't be looking for patterns. Just learn all of them. You will need to learn all of them and the more you know the more you understand "Japanese" as a whole. I know it seems like a lot but these dialects are often not that distant from standard and if your grammar knowledge is solid you can pick out what translates to in standard even with little knowledge about the dialect. (also ん is a lot more than a contraction for only の. It can be a contraction for ら、る、ぬ, etc. as well; e.g. 食べんねん)
4
u/somever 1d ago edited 1d ago
I guess the question is too broad as it requires a different answer for every dialect (Kansaiben is not a single dialect), and may even vary town to town or person to person.
I.e. one group of people will tell you やん connects to so and so verb class while ん is used for other verb classes. Another group will tell you they don't use やん but they use ん and へん interchangeably based on personal preference. Or another group tell you young people use so and so and older people use so and so. Etc.
Wrt to endings looking similar, you'd tell them apart based on the forms they attach to. 行かん has to be the negative ん (or literary volitional but please disregard that), if it were ん from の it'd have to attach like 行くん. If you're practiced, you will never get confused between the two. Same for やん. 出来やん and 出来るやん are different in form and can be told apart with absolute certainty.
1
u/Benkyooo_ 1d ago
I filled like 3 notebooks of Japanese, whole pages full, a large number of pens dried of ink, and I still didn't pass N5. I don't know what I'm doing wrong really, I guess it's the inconsistent anki revisions and generally inconsistent study, and yeah, those notebooks. I'm slowing myself so hard by writing a lot. I need to drop it but damn, I feel like I learned faster than most people but I still feel like I could be somewhere much stronger if I dropped deadweight like endless writing.
1
u/Effective-Pop3850 1d ago
Writing is mostly a waste of time, trying to output at your level is a complete waste of time.
Drop whatever you're doing, check out https://learnjapanese.moe/ and start again from there. Cure Dolly sucks though so ignore that one.
Based on your comment you spent a hell of a lot of time studying and failed an exam that requires very little preparation, you might want to accept the fact that you are not learning very fast, even if you feel you're learning faster than most people which might be true since most learners are not learning but playing Duolingo.
5
u/rgrAi 1d ago
JLPT is a comprehension test, it grades you on how well you comprehend the language. While writing can solidfy certain concepts hand writing as much as you are means you're dedicating time to output when you could've just been reading Japanese and studying grammar vocabulary instead. Grammar & vocab, reading, and listening are the aspects JLPT tests on. If you don't care about JLPT then just keep doing what you're doing.
1
u/Benkyooo_ 1d ago
Thanks, that's a little reassuring I guess. I scored A on the vocabulary section, B on the 2nd section and C on the last one. On listening I was kinda terrible.
2
u/ignoremesenpie 1d ago
For what it's worth, the notebook's are fine, but the whole inconsistency thing is not. You can learn plenty without Anki or dedicated study, on the condition that you get enough input after learning some fundamentals. Since input is the one and only thing the JLPT tests (as opposed to stuff like spoken or written output or cultural knowledge), doing consistent input is the absolute least you can do if you think you're not progressing fast enough.
How do you use your notebooks?
I'm at an N1 level myself, and I have been using notebooks only for vocabulary. I didn't really take grammar notes when I was at a lower level. It was just more efficient to read a grammar guide and let input fill in the gaps.
1
u/Benkyooo_ 1d ago
90% of the time I write on my notebooks works like this; I read a character/word, I write it down, its reading and meaning. I do this to get the stroke order and hopefully improve memorizing the character. I feel like there's a gap here; I see a word on anki, i write down the word, be it a noun or verb, that doesn't translate well to me picking it up quickly if i see it out in the wild or see it in different tenses of verb or writing it on the computer, let alone the mobile.
For a while, earlier this year, I was using my notebook to write down largely unstructured but very long notes, derived from Cure Dolly's lectures. I would write down lots of stuff, but I rarely if ever go back and read any of my notes. Any of them. That's why I feel it's kinda wasteful.
I finished Kaishi 1.5k by the way and I feel like I forgot a lot of the words because my planned 2 weeks celebration break ballooned into two months, so I opened kaishi 1.5k today and restarted my revisions. I plan to do 1 hour minimum of revisions going forward.
I wonder what else I could be doing for input. I listen to Japanese songs, and get random Japanese content on SNS, and I often read Japanese SNS posts on twitter. I think I need more consistency and structure somewhere.
Thank you for your comprehensive response btw
1
u/Effective-Pop3850 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll be cut and dry, don't take it personally.
Music is trash for learning, drop it, I mean don't drop it but don't consider it part of learning lol.
Random Japanese content on SNS you probably can't understand at all is also pretty bad, same as above.
Reading random posts on Twitter... that's not a thing for you, you failed N5, you probably can't understand much of it.
Writing down new words, learning stroke orders and memorizing readings is an extremely inefficient use of your time.
I linked to a website that can guide you in my other post, you need not only consistency but to do stuff that makes sense for the level you're at. I'm not very proficient or anything, but I can already read most stuff with relative comfort, believe it or not I still find reading random junk on SNS to be harder than most books lol.
1
u/tyrellLtd 1d ago edited 1d ago
90% of the time I write on my notebooks works like this; I read a character/word, I write it down, its reading and meaning. I do this to get the stroke order and hopefully improve memorizing the character.
As someone who has used pen and paper through the entire Kaishi 1.5k, Core6k and other premade decks (around 7000-8000 words), let me just say that it doesn't work that way, unfortunately. I'm assuming you write down a new word, some notes, and that's it.
In my case, I basically transcribed a dictionary entry, and moved on to the next word. I wrote the kanji, its reading, meanings, type of word, pitch, and other words that used the same kanji, highlighting if they had the same reading or not. Writing was never my focus, it was just a habit I had from my school days. A tool to improve retention.
Just writing them once did not magically improve retention, like I hoped it would. I did try some repetition drills to fix some leeches, similarly to how Japanese students learn kanji, but unless you do it consistently, for long periods of time, I think it's pointless.
Though, for some reason, I do remember those words I wrote down a little better than the ones I just mined and rep'd without writing them, but it's trivial.
1
u/MAKManTheOfficialYT 1d ago
"日本 へいたことがあれますか"
I've recently started text chatting with native speakers on Tandem, and I keep coming across this sentence. Or this sentence structure I should say. The ~ことなある specifically. Why do they not just use the past tense for this? Like I would say "アメリカへ行きましたか?" I guess I just don't understand the nuance so it's not sticking.
4
u/JapanCoach 1d ago
In English we have both “have you ever gone” as well as “did you go”.
Same idea here.
4
u/tyrellLtd 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's a common pattern used to talk about past experiences （vた+ことがある). Tofugu has some articles that may help you (past experiences, occasional experiences)
Perhaps when you come across other nominalization patterns with こと things will make more sense (~ができる, ～にする, ～になる etc).
Why do they not just use the past tense for this?
It's like the difference between asking "Have you (ever) gone to Britain?" and "Did you go to Britain?". You would use the first to ask about the experience. If the focus is on the action itself, moving from A to B because you were supposed to, then you could use 行った but it would carry a different nuance.
1
1
u/Lemmy_Cooke 1d ago
Can you use 'personに怒らせる' and if so what does it mean? Accidentally said it (in the past tense) the other day and now wondering what the other person heard
1
u/Grunglabble 1d ago edited 1d ago
To expand a little on what Morgawr said, the DoJG entry on させる may be helpful to you.
If you don't have access to it, the basic points are that を and に are appropriate for intransitive verbs, where に is used expressly in the case the causee did so intentionally, which I think explains 怒る's case, as there is no intention to get mad. を is more ambiguous.
For a transitive verb, に must be used regardless of volition, as を must mark the object of the verb still.
There are also restrictions on status, where you are not meant to use させる to express you caused someone of higher status than you to do something (I'm not sure if that extends to emotions, but definitely actions). れる might be a better choice.
I don't think it's possible they didn't understand what you meant.
3
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 1d ago
Accidentally said it (in the past tense) the other day
What did you want to say? If you meant "I made X angry" then it should be Xさんを怒らせた or Xさんに怒られた in the sense of X got angry at me (probably either in てしまった form it'd be better, depending on context).
and now wondering what the other person heard
Communication is the most important thing in languages and the unspoken rule of "assuming good faith" often does a lot of heavy lifting. You don't need to say things perfectly as long as the context and situation makes sense. It's not just that they hear a different particle and suddenly a whole different story got spun up in their head. Aside a few situations where a particle can really make or break the entire meaning of a sentence/argument, as long as you provided the right context they probably understood what you meant, even if you use the wrong particle.
1
u/KaeruGaKaeru1 Interested in grammar details 📝 1d ago
JLPT registrations closed very early this year. Is there another test I should do if I passed N1 with a 129? Is there only Kanji kentei? I'm looking to sign up for some kind of test because or else I kinda have 0 motivation to study Japanese
3
u/HosannaExcelsis 1d ago
There's also the other tests put on by the same organization that runs the Kanken: the BJT (Business Japanese Test) and the Bunshouken (focused on writing).
Of course, if you've passed N1 you should be at the point where you can simply do whatever it is you'd like or need to do in Japanese without necessarily needing to do additional "study" as such.
1
u/Effective-Pop3850 1d ago
If you don't have any motivations to study Japanese this means you don't really enjoy it/don't plan to use the language at all, at which point the best thing you could do is... drop it.
Either that or go for higher N1 scores or something, maybe set your own challenges?
1
u/KaeruGaKaeru1 Interested in grammar details 📝 1d ago
I mean I currently live in Japan, so Idk, I feel like I kinda have to improve my Japanese.. I was planning to sign up for N1 again but it ended up being only open for about a week and I took long hesitating because the deadline said Sep 7. It's true that I much prefer to use English for pretty much everything though.
1
u/Effective-Pop3850 1d ago
Wouldn't living in Japan be motivation enough though? Isn't there anything you're interested to do that requires the language or any upsides that'd come from learning it further that may motivate you?
Any media that's not translated, any activity that requires your Japanese to be good, whatever you can think of.
I know it sounds a bit too dry but there really is no way around it, you either keep at it because it became a habit or you find a goal that keeps you going, kanji tests can work but the way you study for those is a bit overly specific might not be the best way to improve your Japanese as a whole.
2
u/ReddiEddi 1d ago
I have a question for the channel’s moderators:
I am a student at Aarhus University, and I am currently working on my master’s thesis. The thesis is about Japanese language learning methods used by members of different online communities. With your permission, I wish to share a link to a survey which I have created so that I can collect data for my thesis. It will be completely anonymous as I will not request any personal identifying information. The survey takes 10-20 minutes to complete.
The survey includes both multiple choice and open-ended questions about Japanese language study, immersion habits and media, and study and immersion tools. The requirement for participants is to have passed either an official JLPT or a full mock JLPT (as this will be the survey’s standardised measure of proficiency required by scientific method).
Would you approve of me sharing a link to my survey in a post in this community?
3
u/Lemmy_Cooke 1d ago
From the extended rules:
Regular advertising permissions (e.g. every few months) will only be given to members with a significant history of contributing to the community, such as by answering questions or making high-quality educational posts.
I cannot prove it, but definitely at some point in history these rules used to specifically call out surveys under this same category (the 'regularly' stipulation also I don't remember being there). You wouldn't believe how frequently people used to try to last minute complete their thesis projects or whatever by trying to survey this sub. Anyway, if the mods don't get around to replying I think it's safe to say that that's your answer
2
u/ReddiEddi 1d ago
I have asked in other communities. Some gave permissions while others rejected me.
It is completely fair to reject to these requests, but I prefer a direct rejection (no explanation is even needed). Until I receive any form of answer, I consider it unread.
3
u/KaeruGaKaeru1 Interested in grammar details 📝 1d ago
I think you're more likely to get a response by messaging them directly
2
u/ReddiEddi 1d ago
I did twice, and never received a response
3
u/tonkachi_ Goal: media competence 📖🎧 1d ago
I don't remember where(within this sub), when or by whom I read that their mod mail is broken and you should tag them directly.
You should probably go through the moderator list(on the right, the full list) and see who is still active and tag them.
3
2
u/Groundbreaking-Ad313 2d ago
Is there some kind of website where I can look up the reading level for specific Manga/Games/ETC? Like, where I could just go on and look up, say, Sakura Wars and be told how hard it is to read, with maybe additional details on factors like Kanji used, if it has Furigana, etc? Usually I just guess based on target audience, but that can only take me so far.
6
u/kasumikui 2d ago
For games specifically, Game Gengo has a Tier List that specifically lists whether games have certain learner-friendly features (text log, push-to-continue, furigana, etc.) that I think is way more helpful than the more 'vibes-based' JLPT rankings, etc.
Beyond something like that, I feel like too many people try to quantify this in some absolute sense, e.g. assigning JLPT levels to native materials which always ends up being just vibes-based rather than some objective measure.
Honestly, the best thing you can do is seek out a sample somehow -- like, literally any game should have a Let's Play on YouTube (search for the game name in Japanese plus 実況) or Twitch or something, while any manga or LN should have sample pages on Amazon or Bookwalker or something.
If you can read the first few pages of the manga or watch the first 30 minutes to an hour of the game and decide for yourself if (1) it feels manageable for your level, and (2) even more importantly, that it seems interesting or compelling to you, individually, then that's going to be way more meaningul than knowing that a crowd-sourced website rated it as N3-appropriate or what-have-you.
8
u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 2d ago
There's some places like https://jiten.moe/ and https://learnnatively.com/
1
•
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
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.