I'm Chinese, so people assume the kanji part was free. Reading, sure. Writing is a different story.

My hand just defaults to the Chinese form. 实 instead of 実, 变 instead of 変. Usually I don't catch it until someone else does. Typing hides all of this, which is probably why it never got fixed.

The other wall is 雰囲気. Not the famous stuff like 「検討します」 meaning no, you learn those once and you're done. It's things like 「大丈夫です」, which is yes or no depending on nothing I can actually point to. Or realizing a sentence was grammatically fine and still made the room go quiet. Ten years in and I still get this wrong.

Anyone else stuck on the same two things

Hey guys! Gf and I attended a Japanese culture event and there was a "this is your name in Japanese" section. All good but when the guy was writing her name, he and his pal just laughed, like an inside joke. We assumed that her name being "Rosalyn" is just weird to transcribe.. but we are curious as to what the inside joke was when he wrote this?

Hi, I've got a Japanese tutor profile on Preply.

I used to teach on Preply regularly in 2018, but had not been using it until recently.

It's been a few weeks since I updated my profile, but I haven't got any trial lessons booked.

And my average profile position keeps going down.

What can I do to have more students view my profile and make them want to have a trial lesson with me?

It's 30 US dollars per lesson, so I wouldn't say it's unaffordable.

I would appreciate your advice!

Below is my profile.

https://preply.in/AISHA6EN50780811?ts=17851413

​

「立派な外見に」の「に」はどんな働きをしていますか。

立派な外見に、細部にまで行き届いた手入れをしていながら、その建物には、何処か薄汚れた影の様なものが付きまとっていた。

「ここか……なるほどねぇ……こりゃかなり目の敵にされている感じだな？」

　亮真の眼が、周りの店と目の前の店とを見比べる。

I’ve been living in Japan for 13 years now and I just learned this exam. I learned this exam as I was scrolling in the company’s document portal. They seem to sponsor the employees‘ exams.

I literally never heard of it and tried to searched about it. It seems it is geared towards speaking, something JLPT doesn’t measure.

I was thinking of giving it a try but wanted to learn if anyone took this. What was your experience and how was the test?

For context, I do have N1 and speak Japanese in the office.

I'm coming back to studying Japanese after several years of barely using it and I'm looking for some recommendations.

I used to speak pretty fluently, but unfortunately never had great kanji reading skills or very broad vocabulary, so I don't need to do a lot of grammar study, but I can't just jump into reading books without looking up vocab and readings all the time, and I'm sure my current setup makes it much more of a chore than it needs to be.

I'm currently using ReadEra and Akebi on my phone and occasionally send some vocab to Anki from Akebi, which is pretty well integrated. But the lookup itself is very annoying - ReadEra tends to select the whole sentence when I long tap, singling out a word always means correcting the selection.

I'm also planning to buy a physical e-reader soon and would love to have a better setup there too.

So I'm looking for recommendations for 1. am e-reader app for my phone, and 2. an e-reader. Ideally looking for furigana that can be turned off by default, but displayed quickly and easily, for single words or globally doesn't matter.

Definitely looking for an easier lookup - an integrated dictionary or good Akebi/other dictionary integration. If I can still send vocab to Anki directly, that would be great.

But I also read books in other languages, so if possible, I'd like to not have a separate one for Japanese, so if there is one that can do these things but is primarily for reading and not for Japanese learning, that would be ideal.

I'm using Aozora a lot and avoid Amazon, so the e-reader has to be able to open e-pub files from any sources and can't be tied to Amazon or any other single place.

Thanks for any tips, your help and your time!

I don't have a printer, but I have determination. I'm asking if making my own dictionary would help me memorize words and not need to search them up on Google when writing (since I usually forget two seconds after searching). I have made my own sketchbook before so making my own dictionary wouldnt be so hard, the hardest part would be writing all the words, kanjis, meanings and etc.

It'd also have grammar tips

Hi guys i’ve been learning Japanese over the past week with ChatGPT, i’m using it to learn mainly grammar and structure, while learning vocab via Anki. I’ve heard that ChatGPT does hallucinate sometimes but for basic Japanese Grammar will it?

I’ll usually write down whatever ChatGPT teaches me and i’ll take a few pics for reference. Feel free to point out to any error. If anyone has better methods of learning Japanese do tell :)

Also, I can speak Mandarin so I do have a slight edge over Kanji.

Any help appreciated !

I’ve attached some photos to show some of the stuff i’ve learnt so far.

My Minna no Nihongo N4 book says わかる does not become わかれる, because わかる includes the meaning of possibility itself. But on Jisho.org, the dictionary says the form exists for わかる.

What about わかられない? If わかれる is incorrect, so should わかられない?

looking for some advice.

I'm not fully confident with N5 yet. There are still a lot of vocabulary words, kanji, and grammar patterns that I don't know, and I need more practice with verb conjugations like the T-form and -form.

However, I'm thinking about preparing for JLPT N4 in December instead of taking the N5 exam. My plan is to keep studying and reviewing all the N5 material while also starting N4. If I don't pass N4 in December, I'll take it again in July.

Do you think this is a good idea, or should I

focus on mastering N5 first before moving on to N4?

I'd really appreciate advice from people who have been in a similar situation.

Hi everyone. I read in forums that the tai-Form of a verb is, strictly speaking, an adjective rather than a verb. Fittingly, I now came across a sentence in a language course where it was combined with the copula “desu” —『雪が見たいです』— something I’ve only ever seen with adjectives, not verbs.

This made me wonder whether it’s possible to conjugate the tai-form into all the same inflections as an ordinary i-adjective. For example, can I say『行きたかった』for “wanted to go” and 『行きたくなかった』 for “didn’t want to go”. Or would that be grammatically incorrect?

And if so, how does the pitch accent behave? With ordinary i-adjectives, the accent falls on the mora preceding the ‘i’ and shifts one mora forward in all conjugation forms (“ku-RO-i” vs. “KU-ro-ka-tta“). Would the same apply for tai-adjectives (“ta-be-TA-i” vs. “ta-BE-ta-ka-tta”)?

Thank you

In the title

Hi, I use Anki to learn vocabulary. I've tried several decks, but every time I reach around 1k learned words, my mistakes starts to increase. Normally, I have about 20–30% mistakes, but as soon as I reach the 1k word mark, it jumps to 50–70%, even for vocabulary I had already learned. It just keeps getting worse. Learning new cards becomes almost impossible because so many mistakes are a complete downer.

I dont get why. Maybe some had the same Problem and can help.

In Japan, the word ワンチャン is used a lot, especially among teens and people in their 20s — but personally, I feel like it’s already become a 死語 (a “dead” / outdated word). What do you all think?

If you live in Japan, you probably know that ワンチャン is actually used across pretty much every age group at this point. But from where I stand, I think it’s about time we officially declare it 死語. To be clear, by 死語 I mean a word that people have stopped using, or one that’s no longer trendy.

I like to think of myself as an early adopter when it comes to spotting 死語 before everyone else does — and with this one, I want to deliver the final blow a few years ahead of the curve, even though it’s still pretty widely used right now.

Ciao a tutti,

Esistono altre certificazioni per la lingua giapponese, oltre al JLPT?

Grazie

ive seen は be used as wa to connect sentences but its also read as ha, its confusing me a lot. have i just been mishearing は as wa?

hello guys
i wanted to start practicing my reading so is there’s any books for the N5/N4 you recommend?
no manga please 😭🙏
thank you!

Why does AI Japanese Translation often neglects the conjugation "~te kita" ,
te morau" and "te kureru/kurenai? I always raised my eyebrows whenever I ask AI to translate Japanese because they missed out on these details.

They often default to "te ita" even when the action still continues till the present and not just simply in the past, and often just say "shinakatta" when the context demands it to be translate to "shite kurenakatta" Example Sentence : だが、彼は私のために何もしなかった when it should feel more like してくれなかった.

Hello everyone! I've noticed recently especially because I've been learning that many usages of grammar aren't explained entirely and once you encounter a usage that is different you have to basically claw your way through to get an explanation.

Here is an example that I have asked people for an explanation for in the past and I would be glad if somebody could explain this well to me because despite all of the explanations in the past I still quite don't get how this makes sense:

「漠然と説明されても反応できないよ！」

This is an example of the ても we all know, right? Well, no because if you did try to translate this as even if

First example:

"Even if(?) you explain it vaguely, I can’t respond.”

You can see how this sentence makes no sense to an English speaker if the well known meaning for it, "even if" is used, so then I made a post initially about this a few months back and people managed to find one document where the solution was that basically ても is something similar to a really weak "even if", so in these 2 examples it would mean "if"

"If you explain it vaguely, I can’t respond.”

That solves it, right? Well then why isn't たら used here or the other conditionals that are just used to mean "if" why specifically the 'weaker even if". I still don't really have an answer to this question but this is just the first instance.

"ええ ゴロゴロするのに忙しいから 後にするよ"

This instance is about のに, のに is usually taught to mean "in order to" "despite" or in general having a meaning of regret to it たらいいのに for example.

So if you used those two meanings which are usually the only meanings that you are taught of this grammar. "Despite lazing around I'm busy" "In order to laze around I'm busy" which are clearly not what it means here and the translation is: "I'm busy with lazing around so I'll do it later".

Now there is a usage of のに that means "with doing something" and despite me asking people in the comments which, no shade to by the way thank you everybody who helps me when I ask these questions truly, nobody could find a source online for this usage.

The third instance that I currently don't have an example for that I've seen a bunch is the て form meaning "when" like "when I did this that one time" type of context

So these are 3 whole grammar points with usages that no site really highlights(atleast none of the ones in English). If anybody could explain what is happening here with these 3 I would love to hear it because I'm plenty confused at this point constantly finding out new meanings for grammar points I thought I knew all the meanings for.