r/LearnJapanese 22h ago

Discussion Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don't need their own posts, and first time posters go here (April 06, 2025)

3 Upvotes

This thread is for all simple questions, beginner questions, and comments that don't need their own post.

Welcome to /r/LearnJapanese!

Please make sure if your post has been addressed by checking the wiki or searching the subreddit before posting or it might get removed.

If you have any simple questions, please comment them here instead of making a post.

This does not include translation requests, which belong in /r/translator.

If you are looking for a study buddy or would just like to introduce yourself, please join and use the # introductions channel in the Discord here!

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Seven Day Archive of previous threads. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.


r/LearnJapanese 2d ago

Discussion Weekly Thread: Meme Friday! This weekend you can share your memes, funny videos etc while this post is stickied (April 04, 2025)

1 Upvotes

Happy Friday!

Every Friday, share your memes! Your funny videos! Have some Fun! Posts don't need to be so academic while this is in effect. It's recommended you put [Weekend Meme] in the title of your post though. Enjoy your weekend!

(rules applying to hostility, slurs etc. are still in effect... keep it light hearted)

Weekly Thread changes daily at 9:00 EST:

Mondays - Writing Practice

Tuesdays - Study Buddy and Self-Intros

Wednesdays - Materials and Self-Promotions

Thursdays - Victory day, Share your achievements

Fridays - Memes, videos, free talk


r/LearnJapanese 1h ago

Kanji/Kana How To Never Forget A Kanji

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Upvotes

r/LearnJapanese 6h ago

Discussion A random guide to Anime for Japanese

155 Upvotes

Hi there. This is the third installment in my series of threads. I have made two other threads for Visual Novels and Light Novels and so today, I plan to cover anime. While I did want to do Manga instead as Manga is probably a beginner's biggest gateway into reading, I have personally barely used Mokuro (software needed for reading manga) and so perhaps I'll do it in the future.

What is anime?

This doesn't even need an introduction. Japan's biggest international media source (I would assume) is Anime. But alas, Anime is a medium of hand-drawn/computer-drawn animations originating from Japan. In Anime, all forms of animation, including western cartoons, are known as "Anime", but here in the west (and probably everywhere else), anime is a genre of animation known for its unique art-style (and variations). No doubt, most people here are learning Japanese so as to be able to understand their favourite anime.

Danjo no Yuujou wa Seiritsu suru? (Iya, Shinai!!) (2025)

Why anime?

Well, anime is probably the biggest medium out there for Japanese content. It is probably the biggest reason why people learn Japanese; to understand anime. There are all sorts of anime out there, ranging from slice of life to fantasy to mystery to even horror. It is a massive medium full of thousands of hours of content that one can utilize to learn Japanese. And because of the visuals and animation, unlike reading-centric material (like novels), it's rather heavy when it comes to its usage of dialogue. The lack of descriptive vocabulary/grammar makes it a lot more approachable as a medium. This is probably the best gateway (besides manga) into native content.

Violet Evergarden (2018)

Prerequisites for anime:

Like most mediums, I will always recommend having a base of vocab, grammar, and a base to be able to recognize pitch accent. If you aim to go down a listening-centric route or want to develop a good accent, developing a good ear for pitch accent and the sounds of the language is key to developing good pronunciation and pitch.

- Hiragana + Katakana Knowledge ( https://realkana.com/ )

- Basic Grammar Knowledge (N4+) (Either Read https://sakubi.neocities.org/ or finish Genki I and II)

- At least 1k vocab words ( Use Anki and The Kaishi 1.5k Deck to learn the most common vocab)

- Read this to know how to obtain a foundation for pitch accent.

- You don't need prior reading experience, but you can always use Manga as an easier piece of immersion material before watching anime.

For the sake of this tutorial, I'm mainly going to be talking about using Anime with Japanese subtitles as a form of input rather than focusing on unsubbed anime. I will be making a separate listening section, but this tutorial is mainly aimed at those intending to use Japanese-subbed anime to learn.

How to set anime up for learning.

  1. Get your anime.

There are multiple ways to get it and I'll cover both of the ways. First though, I recommend that if you can, please support the creators and use official platforms that pay the creators of the anime that you watch. Services like Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc.; however, if you can't, then you will often find people either downloading anime via torrenting or streaming anime using streaming services like Crunchyroll or 3rd party anime sites. You're free to find your own way to get your anime. I'll leave a link to some resources you can use over here.

I also have the anime on my browser.
I also have the anime located in a local folder on my desktop.

You can procure your anime either way. Either method works with what I am about to show you.

  1. Download a dictionary software like Yomitan.

As mentioned in previous tutorials, Yomitan is a pop-up dictionary in your browser that allows you to search words up. For example:

Follow this tutorial here to learn how to set Yomichan up:

https://learnjapanese.moe/yomichan/

  1. Setup ASBPlayer.

ASBPlayer is a tool for attaching subtitle files onto your anime. You can use it alongside Yomitan to watch Japanese-subbed anime and search words up.You can install ASBPlayer using this link:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/asbplayer-language-learni/hkledmpjpaehamkiehglnbelcpdflcab

Once you install it, go to the link here:

https://killergerbah.github.io/asbplayer/

You'll see a page like this:

  1. Grab your subtitle files.

Go to the link over here: https://jimaku.cc/

It looks like this:

Search for the specific anime you need. Now, do note that some anime may not have subtitle files. If they do not appear here, try googling them. If you can't find them, the anime you're trying to watch may not have subtitles.

Now, download the specific one you would like to watch.

Once you have it downloaded, you should be ready to go from here. The subtitle file formats are either in SRT or ASS format.

  1. Load the anime and add subtitles.

Now, this step is going to vary depending on if you've downloaded your anime locally or whether you're watching it on an online streaming site. I'll cover both:

Using streaming websites:

Go to your preferred streaming website of choice and find the anime you'd like to watch.

Click on the anime and load up the episode:

Next, get the subtitle file and drag it on top of the video. You'll then see a massive ASBPlayer logo:

Drop it onto your episode and you should see your subtitles load up. You may be good to go from here, but you may also need to sync if they're lagging behind or too fast. If you do need to, click on the extensions button on the top right of Google Chrome and Locate ASBPlayer.

You can alternatively pin extensions and they'll be attached to your sidebar.

Click on the ASBPlayer extension and you'll be welcomed with this page:

Go to "Keyboard Shortcuts" on the left side and locate these two shortcut options:

Make sure they're enabled and assign custom hotkeys using the pencil icon. I have mine set to J and K for reference.

Go back to your anime and press either of these two to offset the subtitles so that the timing of the subtitles matches the audio.

I've had to offset it by 10 seconds to match it with the audio.

Once you've done this, you're ready to go and immerse yourself in some subtitled anime.

Now, for the local files.

Using local files:

Go to this link over here:

https://killergerbah.github.io/asbplayer/

It should look like this:

Press on the "browse" button in pink and locate your anime.

Once you have your anime, press the file icon in the top left corner here:

Locate your subtitle files from there:

Once you locate your subtitles, sync them up using the method I showed you earlier and you should be able to watch anime like this:

Errors with mute audio or unsupported video files:

If you do notice that neither the audio is playing while the video is or that the video file refuses to load altogether, then your browser doesn't support the necessary codecs needed to be able to support these sorts of videos. Download a specialized version of the Chromium browser which does support all of the codecs here:

https://chromium.woolyss.com/

Videos with dual audios:

This is a pretty easy fix. Just go to chrome://flags/ in your browser and enable "Experimental Web Platform Features" and restart your browser.

Once you refresh your browser and load up an anime, then you should be able to switch between audio tracks using this option at the bottom right of the player:

Now that you have everything set up, you should be able to use the subtitles for a more reading-centric approach. Though, if you do want to go for a more listening based approach, here's how I would do it:

The listening section with ASBPlayer.

  1. Have the subtitles disabled for now (you can enable the "disable hotkey" in the "keyboard shortcuts" menu).
  2. Just try to watch the anime as normal and any time you don't hear something, try to listen for the audio by rewinding and listening.
  3. If you still can't hear it, enable the subtitles to see what you couldn't hear. If there is an unknown word or grammar point, use yomichan to search it up.

What anime should I watch?

Here are a couple of recommendation lists here:

https://jpdb.io/anime-difficulty-list

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w42HEKEu2AzZg9K7PI0ma9ICmr2qYEKQ9IF4XxFSnQU/edit?gid=1019246469#gid=1019246469

But ultimately, find whatever you'd like to watch that you find interesting. The best place to start is by watching something that you've found enjoyable that you've watched with English subs before. I'd recommend either that or SOL romance anime as those tend to be the anime with the easiest forms of dialogue. Either way works.


r/LearnJapanese 8h ago

Kanji/Kana Extremely useful Japanese for those that're in the stage where it's all just kanji

24 Upvotes

A Japanese friend helped perfect a 四字熟語 I was trying to make easy to understand for natives, but also make it funny and relatable.

See if you can figure out the meaning.

毎日同糞


r/LearnJapanese 1h ago

Studying I feel like I need to reset my Anki and study.

Upvotes

Last year when I didn’t have a job I was making studying Japanese a higher priority in my daily activity. I was doing Anki every day and trying to watch vids/ listen to podcasts.

Then I got a job in early September, and though I tried to keep the habit, getting used to my new job was taking a lot of my mental energy. Soon I stopped entirely.

Now I’m trying to get back to it and I feel like I’ve forgotten everything, and it’s very disheartening.

To be clear I think right now it’s just words I’ve forgotten. I can still read hiragana and katakana just fine. But when I go to my Anki deck, most of the less common words are gone from my memory.

I’m considering restarting the whole deck because I’m so frustrated having hundreds of words I don’t remember anymore coming up. But I feel this is just my brain trying to take an easy out, and feel good when I recognize all the easy ones again.

Any advice on how to pick myself back up again? I’m aiming to get to a decent level by end of year.


r/LearnJapanese 3h ago

Discussion Could someone explain ように and として to me?

8 Upvotes

Everytime I see these two, ように fucking never means in order to or anything similar to that and the same goes for として very rarely do the meanings in the dictionaries help, could somebody help me with the confusion also how do I differentiate the として that means as and the alternative to にして, としてsometimes works but with ように I don't get if I'm stupid or it just does not mean any of the things the dictionary says


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Resources I made a website for practicing verb conjugations in Japanese!

321 Upvotes

You can find the website here.

The website is completely, entirely, totally free in every way and will remain that way forever. No ads, no registration, no cookies, no payment. Just a static website for you to use however you like for as long as you like. I do not make a dime from it.

Some key features:

  • Practice your choice of up to 217 different verb conjugations, from beginner to advanced
  • Choose which verbs to practice on, including the ability to add your own if you want
  • Practice in 3 different modes with varying degrees of difficulty
  • Tons of settings and customization options
  • Low-friction quizzing with high score tracking: Get going in seconds and keep going as long as you want, and when you’re done, pick back up where you left off in an instant
  • Supports Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji input from your own IME, plus a built-in IME if you don’t have (or don’t want to use) your own
  • Advanced typo detection and prevention
  • Skip words you don’t know on-the-fly without breaking your streak
  • Sandbox mode for getting used to conjugations you don’t feel ready to be quizzed on yet
  • Detailed help pages with pictures if you need a hand
  • Over 16,000 questions built into the base app, with the ability to add as many more as you want
  • Built-in support for importing and exporting all your data, allowing you to create backups or transfer your data between devices and browsers

Please enjoy! :) And let me know if you have any questions or find any bugs.

Edit: Forgot to mention before (ty u/Dry-Masterpiece-7031), I only designed the app to work on desktop. It will still function on mobile, but there is no responsive layout, so some parts (especially the header) will get squashed and be very weird lol. I made this 8 months ago so I completely forgot about that


r/LearnJapanese 6h ago

Speaking Tried to practice my speaking by reading out aloud some NHK News articles. What should I focus on if I want to improve my speaking skills?

6 Upvotes

Hi due to lack of practice I am still very inexperienced when it comes to speaking.

So I tried to do a little speaking practice by trying to read out aloud the latest 4 NHK easy news article since they are quite short and also have furigana. So I thought for someone who is still very inexperienced with speaking Japanese I thought it might be a fun practice.

So below I will link my attempt of reading the articles as well as their corresponding articles. Of course I won’t expect any one to listen to all of my tries but if some kind and more experienced soul finds the time to listen to just one example and tell me what points I should focus on when trying to improve my speaking skills.

https://vocaroo.com/1aM1SaLhODBQ:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ne2025040411078/ne2025040411078.html

https://vocaroo.com/1a5ORp0mEdxv:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ne2025040411402/ne2025040411402.html

https://vocaroo.com/1kkNb3A0geW8:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ne2025040411434/ne2025040411434.html

https://vocaroo.com/1dYiwAiuCyrU:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ne2025040411523/ne2025040411523.html

P.S. I know that the best method would probably be to actually find a Japanese person, like a tutor to directly talk to but next to other reasons, as a somewhat introvert person I have not found yet the courage to get into an actual conversation.


r/LearnJapanese 2m ago

Studying Interesting beginner text...

Post image
Upvotes

I was reviewing some practice text i had saved when i made basic comprehension readings and holy... Such a depressive starter text.


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Resources I made a fun, aesthetic, minimalist web-based Kana, Kanji and Vocabulary Trainer! 🇯🇵🇯🇵

Thumbnail gallery
121 Upvotes

As a long time Japanese learner, I always wanted there to be a simple online trainer for learning kana, Kanji and vocabulary - like Anki, but for the web. Originally, I created the website for personal use simply as a better alternative to kana pro and realkana (both of which I used extensively for brushing up on my kana), adding a bunch of funky themes and fonts just for the fun factor. But, after a couple of my friends liked it, I decided to bring it online and see if it's of any use to the community.

So, if you're interested in giving it a look, message me in the comments for a link and let me know what you think!

どうもありがとうございます! 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵


r/LearnJapanese 12h ago

Studying Am I doing well?

7 Upvotes

Basically title. Ive been learning Japanese for just over 4 months now, so still beginner.

My routine has consisted of 10 anki cards a day (from Kaishi 1.5k) and grammar from Tai kim's guide and Yokubi. I have kind of left kanji to be learned with kaishi bu I use Kanji study sometimes (free version for now).

I have also done a bit of listening with both Shun and Masa's podcasts and have wached a few Japanese Ammo with Misa videos. I think i am going to start reading more in the future aswell.

Its really hard, I find, to self-evaluate how well I am doing so any advice for moving forward is greatly appreciated! ありがとう 🙏


r/LearnJapanese 19h ago

Speaking 【A Fun Post】Zankoku na Tenshi no Tēze, "A Cruel Angel's Thesis", An Okinawan Version

17 Upvotes

This subreddit is filled with lively and intellectually interesting discussions about the usage of particles, pitch accents, storoke orders of kanji, etc. I am learning Japanese here every day.

However, learning a language can be tedious.

As a native speaker, I would like to introduce a song to my fellow learners and hope that you will have a relaxing time.

【 方言 で 歌ってみた 】 沖縄 女性 がガチの「 残酷な天使のテーゼ エヴァンゲリオン 」ウチナーグチ ver. よ、神話になれ!

https://youtu.be/kglRoOxwjII?si=kMFWWN3u27NXliJC

Ryukyuan languages (琉球諸語 or 琉球語派) is the general term for the languages spoken in Okinawa Prefecture and the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan. It belongs to the Japanese-Ryukyuan language family or Japonic, together with Japanese.

Ryukyuan languages, together with Hachijo-go, have indispensable material value in understanding the history of the Japanese language.

This is because these languages are referred to when estimating what kind of Japanese was spoken in other parts of Japan in the past.


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Discussion Looking for Beginner-Friendly Visual Novels to Improve My Japanese (N3 Level)

32 Upvotes

Hello!

I’m currently learning Japanese and around the N3 level. I’m looking to get into Visual Novels to help improve my reading, vocabulary, and Kanji recognition.

Can anyone recommend some good Visual Novels that are helpful for Japanese learners? It would be amazing if they include Furigana (振り仮名), but I think I can manage without it if the story isn’t too difficult.

I have access to both PC and Nintendo Switch, so any recommendations for either platform would be appreciated. Also, if you know where I can find or purchase them, that would be super helpful!

Thanks so much for taking the time to help!


r/LearnJapanese 8h ago

Kanji/Kana Challenge! Can you make a list of words, only using the 46 base Hiragana? (No repetitions allowed)

2 Upvotes

Hi all, I am currently trying to make a list of nouns, where only 45 base (unmodified) Hiragana are used (so no ざじずぜぞ or きゃきゅきょetc.)I also took out を, as it is a grammatical particle - so not 46, but 45 characters may be used.

- Main challenge point is to not use any character twice -

Currently my best approach (with focus on non-obscure words) is below list with 23 words:

1あわ Bubble 2たこ (Octobus/Kite) 3いぬ (Dog)  4ゆめ (Dream) 5よる (Night) 6もん(Gate) 7やま(Mountain) 8しろ(Castle) 9はれ(Clear Sky) 10うみ(Sea) 11ひふ(Skin) 12かさ(Umbrella) 13せき(Seat/Cough) 14くち(Mouth) 15おの(Axe) 16ほね(Bone)17え(Picture) 18てつ(Iron) 19す(Vinegar) 20なに(What? - I know technically no noun^^) 21へそ(Belly Button) 22けむり(Smoke) 23とら (Tiger)

If you would like to take the challenge, try to make the list shorter and with more common words.


r/LearnJapanese 2d ago

Grammar [Weekend Meme] Every first Japanese lesson be like

Post image
3.2k Upvotes

r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Resources How to remove unnecessary Yomitan (JMdict) tags from Anki cards

11 Upvotes

I have a "part of speech" field on my Anki cards that I use to differentiate between terms that have near-identical meaning but different grammatical function, such as 大きい (i-adjective) vs. 大型 (noun or no-adjective). However, if you use JMdict or Jitendex with Yomitan as your dictionary, many unnecessary tags get mixed in. Take for example the word "切り離す." The tags in JMdict for this term are: ⭐, news13k, spec, v5s, vt. I only really need to know it's a transitive verb (vt), and maybe that it's a godan verb (v5s). The rest of the tags just take up space and don't tell me anything. The easiest and most practical way to remove them is to just edit the front/back of your Anki cards themselves, using a script to hide those terms. Here's a script I found that will accomplish this, just paste where your part of speech field would be and change the <field name> to the one you use on the front and back.
<div id="classField">{{<FIELD NAME>}}</div>
<script>
var classField = document.getElementById("classField");
var text = classField.textContent;
// Remove any unwanted tags
text = text.replace('⭐, ', '').replace('gai, ', '').replace(', uk', '').replace('v1, ', '').replace('news1k, ', '').replace('news2k, ', '').replace('news3k, ', '').replace('news4k, ', '').replace('news5k, ', '').replace('news6k, ', '').replace('news7k, ', '').replace('news8k, ', '').replace('news9k, ', '').replace('news10k, ', '').replace('news11k, ', '').replace('news12k, ', '').replace('news13k, ', '').replace('news14k, ', '').replace('news15k, ', '').replace('news16k, ', '').replace('news17k, ', '').replace('news18k, ', '').replace('news19k, ', '').replace('news20k, ', '').replace('news21k, ', '').replace('news22k, ', '').replace('news23k, ', '').replace('news24k, ', '').replace('ichi, ', '').replace('[tag you want to hide]', '');
classField.textContent = text;
</script>

If you want to add more tags to hide, just paste in this code before the semicolon and replace [tag] with whatever you want to hide:
.replace('[tag]', '')

Here's an example of it working:

original card data copied from Yomitan
card with tags field, unnecessary tags filtered out

r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Speaking I feel like my social energy in Japan is dying and I’m contradicting my own language goals

238 Upvotes

I’ve been living in a share house in Kanagawa for a few months now (lived in Japan since January 2023, with the first year living alone.) At first, it was amazing. I was outputting in Japanese almost daily (recently passed N2 but had very little output practice until I moved here), meeting new people, making mistakes but learning fast, and slowly seeing progress. Every conversation felt like a tiny step forward. Native speakers were even correcting me or complimenting me, and it kept me motivated.

But lately, that energy’s died down. I haven’t really been talking much besides a casual お疲れ here and there. Most of my housemates work full-time, so they’re busy, but I still see them around. I just kind of… put my AirPods in, vibe out, cook food, and enjoy watching the world around me. I’ve been finding peace in just quietly observing, overhearing conversations like a real-life J-drama. I don’t know if this is something I got from watching tons of Japanese media (I’ve followed r/AJATT and have immersing daily), but lately I’ve enjoyed being on the sidelines more than jumping into convos.

The problem is: I want to become fluent. Really fluent. The kind where you can vibe naturally with people, crack jokes, and feel at home in the language. But my lifestyle feels like it’s moving away from that. I’m pretty introverted, and it’s contradictory. I often notice a pattern that all these gaijin that are super good in Japanese have pretty extroverted tendencies, which I’m honestly jealous of. I keep telling myself I want deep friendships, maybe even meet someone special, but I keep choosing solitude. And it’s not even that I don’t like people—I just hate big groups. Always have, even in English.

There’s a Hanami event tomorrow for my share house. I signed up a month ago excited, thinking “maybe I’ll meet someone cool” or even daydreamed about meeting someone I really click with. But now that it’s tomorrow, I feel like skipping. Just imagining myself in a big group full of strangers speaking native-level Japanese makes me anxious. I’m scared I won’t vibe with anyone, or I’ll just sit there like an outcast not understanding half the convos.

I’ve always been a “quality over quantity” type when it comes to friendships. I really want that one native-speaking friend I can be as close with as my brother or my best friend back home. Someone who gets my weird sense of humor, who I can be stupid and “crazy” with. Hell, I even want a girl like that—like someone I once dated who made me forget I was even introverted. I just wanted to be around her all the time. It was effortless.

I know that kind of connection can happen here. But how the hell am I supposed to reach it if I keep isolating myself?

Am I just overthinking this? Should I force myself to go to the event? Or just accept this “quiet observer” phase and let things happen naturally? I’m so tired of contradicting myself.

UPDATE: I didn’t expect this thread to have so many thoughtful replies to reflect on myself. Thanks, everyone.

I didn’t end up going to the event. Instead, I went to do hanami solo in Kamakura and honestly enjoyed every second of it—just being surrounded by the pink and white cherry blossoms and watching how locals reacted around me. I even caught myself daydreaming that maybe one day I’ll go on a date like this with a pretty native speaker... but right now isn’t the time, and that’s okay.

Later, I saw the LINE group chat pictures from the share house event. There were a ton of people I’ve never even met, all packed together. Just imagining myself in that crowd was mentally exhausting. Native-level convos flying over my head, all those "read the air" moments I probably would’ve missed—I just knew it would've drained me.

Reading through the replies here made me realize it's okay to take things slow. I don't need to befriend every person who comes into my orbit. I’ll find my people naturally, at my own pace, without overwhelming myself.

Thanks again for all the insight and encouragement. Means a lot.


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Speaking Listening Comprehension challenge (This is just a fun post. Do not take this too seriously.)

23 Upvotes

How much sense can you make of it?

I do not understand what they are saying at all.

【青森】津軽弁!なまり聖地の方言がスゴすぎた!【秘密のケンミンSHOW極公式|2022年1月13日 放送】

The Tsugaru Dialect

Tsugaru-ben is a dialect spoken in the Tsugaru region of Japan. The Tsugaru region is on the west side of Aomori prefecture, the northernmost prefecture on Japan's mainland of Honshu. The dialect is famous for being notoriously difficult for outsiders to understand.

Advanced learners may compare the Tsugaru dialect with the commonly understood Japanese (共通語) of the subtitle and find that the Tsugaru dialect is somewhat similar to the old Japanese. As you may know, case particles, for example, were rarely used in old Japanese. Or one could argue that case particles had not yet appeared in the old Japanese.


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Discussion Things AI Will Never Understand

Thumbnail youtu.be
64 Upvotes

This was a great argument against AI for language learning. While I like the idea of using AI to review material, like the streamer Atrioc does. I don't understand the hype of using it to teach you a language.


r/LearnJapanese 13h ago

Discussion How exactly am I expected to learn words from games that do not support software such as Textractor?

0 Upvotes

Read the title before commenting, fellas. I am aware of Textractor. But it simply does not work on all games. So what do I do if I encounter an unknown word in such a game? Do I just use OCR over and over again, for each and every word? Or is there a top-secret trick only 0.1% of Japanese learners know about? Am running Artix Linux btw, so I prefer software supported by it.


r/LearnJapanese 2d ago

Kanji/Kana Characters written by Japanese elementary school students

Post image
872 Upvotes

One of the impressions I got from watching this subreddit is that the people studying here are much less confident about their writing than they should be. Let's take a look at the letters written by children growing up in Japan.

Writing classes are a required subject in Japanese elementary schools.

  • Calligraphy classes using a pencil are offered in grades 1-6.
  • Calligraphy classes using a brush are offered from the 3rd grade onward.

Number of class hours: Pencil + Brush

  • About 100 hours per year for 1st and 2nd graders
  • About 85 hours per year in grades 3 and 4
  • About 55 hours per year in grades 5 and 6
  • About 30 hours per year in grades 3 and up

This photo is a picture of particularly good ones. These were written by a third grader. The “金賞Gold Award” in the upper right corner indicates particularly outstanding ones, while the “銀賞Silver Award” in the upper right corner indicates runner-up ones.

In my estimation, this elementary school places a special emphasis on teaching calligraphy and is proud of the results its students are producing.

Remember also that in calligraphy, the emphasis is on the aesthetic aspect of character shape. If one of the first goals of a learner of Japanese is to write characters that native speakers can read and recognize them, then the characters I have seen so far in this subreddit have already achieved that goal.

Photo source: https://nblog.hachinohe.ed.jp/meijie/blog_134074.html


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Discussion Need help understanding something with Kanji

17 Upvotes

I am starting to learn Kanji using WaniKani and I can’t seem to understand how there can be multiple pronunciations for one Kanji

Take 人 as an example Pronunciation in 日本人: にほんじん Pronunciation in 一人: ひとり (also 一 is not pronounced いち)

I don’t know if it’s just a memorization thing of remembering all the pronunciations or if there’s some type of conjugation based on kana/kanji around a specific kanji. Any help/resources or explanations would be helpful and appreciated!


r/LearnJapanese 2d ago

Resources Ultimate Core 10k Anki Deck

51 Upvotes

Since my previous post, I have kept up with my reviews for the JLPT N2 Tango, JLPT N3 Tango, JLPT N4 Tango and JLPT N5 Tango Anki decks. Took and passed the N4 on Dec. of 2024. Still planning on taking the N3 but maybe in Dec. 2026, since I am working full time, but also I am a part-time Grad School student. Due to this, I dropped the Core 10k, and my Anki reviews have become a lot more manageable. I still put an insane amount of work in that deck, so I still wanted to share the fruits of my labor, in case someone else finds them useful in their studies (or someone that may want to do Core 10k, rather than the Tango books).

Here is the Core 10k with both Listening Comprehension and Reading Comprehension cards. Also another version with just the Reading Comprehension cards. The original deck is this one and what I did was basically: remove all images, remove duplicated card templates (there were like 5 different type of cards per note, I reduced it to just 2 for the Listening and Reading decks, kept working my way through it, and eventually reduced it to just merely 1 for the Reading deck (dropped the Listening part and kept just practicing reading comprehension). I also updated the definitions for each word I worked my way through (so around 6k of the words have updated definitions taken from jisho.org or the Android Japanese Dictionary Takoboto), for the verbs, I added whether they were Transitive or Intransitive in [brackets] and, the most painstaking part of the whole process of revising this deck: made sure all furigana was individually set for each kanji to help me memorize the readings for each kanji: so rather than having 日本語 as [にほんご], like it was in the original decks, I went ahead and did 日 [に] 本 [ほん] 語 [ご] (obviously, minus the spaces, I just added them here on reddit, so the example would render properly).

I hope it is useful to someone.


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Grammar Websites/resources for grammar checking?

3 Upvotes

Beginner level, no formal Japanese training. I write a lot of sentences on my notes for practice and I am not even sure if they are grammatically correct half the time.

Is there any good websites for grammar checking? Automatic, AI or forum-based, really any way works, as long as it's good.

I might as well include a sentence I recently made, 「あなたの現金(げんきん)を持(も)ってこなかった?じゃぁ、ではクレジットカードで支払(しはら)っているのはいいです。」


r/LearnJapanese 3d ago

Speaking Help! I can't hear the difference between both ありがとう

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

528 Upvotes

Context: In a magical girl anime, Aiko (from Osaka who speaks in Kansai-ben) pretends to be Hazuki (from a rich trad family) to make up for a fight with Doremi (red-haired girl). Aiko can't reproduce Hazuki's speech and gets busted by Doremi.

The latter corrects her pronounciation of ありがとう but I really can't hear what she's correcting. Help me please!!


r/LearnJapanese 1d ago

Discussion Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don't need their own posts, and first time posters go here (April 05, 2025)

3 Upvotes

This thread is for all simple questions, beginner questions, and comments that don't need their own post.

Welcome to /r/LearnJapanese!

Please make sure if your post has been addressed by checking the wiki or searching the subreddit before posting or it might get removed.

If you have any simple questions, please comment them here instead of making a post.

This does not include translation requests, which belong in /r/translator.

If you are looking for a study buddy or would just like to introduce yourself, please join and use the # introductions channel in the Discord here!

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Seven Day Archive of previous threads. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.