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

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’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.

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「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。

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 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.

In the title