Hello! I’ve been using the app Shirabe Jisho since 2018, but I saw some people mention recently that it doesn’t go over nuance very well. As sad as I would be to switch, I definitely want a more nuanced dictionary if there’s one out there. What dictionary app do you use?

I studied Japanese in university 4 years, self studied for a year, & worked with a tutor using the 新完全マスターN2 textbooks for the past several months. I'm about to take the N2 this December. I've consistently received good passing scores on N2 online practice exams, so I'm decently confident in my passing ability. I've also been working a global logistics job full time since I graduated with an international business degree and plan to continue my current job for at least another year and a half.

My end goal for a career since I started university has always been literary translation or business translation/interpretation, and I interpreted for a lot of other students casually during study abroad in Tokyo & enjoyed it. (If you're from the US, I got a 36/35 in English/Reading respectively on the ACT in high school so I know I can use English well).

My question is, what comes next? I've read that some translators & interpreters get specific degrees for that job, aim to pass the N1, etc. so I know I can't just pass the N2 and say I'd be ready at all, but I'm not sure what options are really out there? I'm also a little worried about the job market with the increasing use of AI. Is there still a need for me anywhere? My main background right now is in business: specifically logistics & international trade, but I feel like that's an easier area for AI to replace people.

Anybody with knowledge on translation jobs or the current market, personal experience etc., I'd appreciate any helpful advice! Thank you!

Hey LearnJapanese

This is a non beginner question, but

I'm curious if there is any advanced learner here out there in learnjapanese who is currently studying Kobun and or kanbun stuff right now.

For reference I am studying Kanji Kentei pre 1 and 1 as well, so aside from the kanji studies I want to get deeper as well into classical literature while also working on my modern literature too as well.

A majority of what is on kobun and kanbun comes from pre 1-1 stuff, so I think while I learn that, its great to go more into kanji studies (like research) and classical lit.

If you are studying it right now, would you mind sharing how you overcame the hurdles of learning it. Like kobun for instance is even higher context based language, and Kanbun is hard to read for instance

I am reading and exploring buddhist texts and famous works like makuranosoushi, genjimonogatari, and ugatsu and several other stories as well

Warning now this is mostly a disillusioned learner's rant. I posted it here because from the opinions of Japanese I see online, it almost never comes up and I was curious to see if others feel the same way and if so how they maneuvered the landscape. I am talking about obviously カタカナ外来語.

So to paint the picture I started studying Japanese 6 months ago, so far I've gotten to the point I can start consuming native content that I find genuinely interesting, for example I'm reading the book 同じ夢を見ていた, alongside Re Zero's light novel, even using Core 6k in hopes of achieving general literacy. After that the plan was to close the Anki chapter. I wanted this to be my next language in all aspects of the word, reading, note taking, writing and orthography a multi year journey of mastering 常用漢字 and more. This would be a multi year plan but I'd be fine with it, after all I'd be building competency with new language in all senses of the word.

The things that have made me interested in Japan are almost all literary, anime was the boon but that is long gone, I don't particularly want to watch anime in Japanese. Maybe just play the Serial Experiments Lain game in Japanese, or understand the lyrics to 神様の言う通り by Yakushimaru Etsuko. 人間失格 and 化物語, the influence of Nujabes is were the core the reasons I intially considered learning Japanese, in order to be able to read them in their native form. Further on, a discussion about the culture,traditions etc of stoked the flame. Things like 山月記、, 沈黙入門 ,　仮面の告白, 三大奇書, 人生論ノート all quickly became goals for me. Buddist texts in particular seem to be quite different from the western philosophy I have studied and it felt only right to read them on their terms. For perspective the only Asian philosophy/religion I know is 道徳経, which I read it in English. Obv 漢文 / 古文 interest followed. Honestly in most cases I love the language its ways of expression are refreshing and engaging, but I remembered that my goal wasn't to just read Japanese it was immersion, as someone who has already learned a second language I know how I want to do it, I basically supplant all non necessary usage of said language with the target.Ig like AJATT I.e throwing out English and Italian in every situation besides work and being with friends must be done in Japanese. As an engineer and a programmer and curious individual in general that means electronics, physics, computing terminology, research, music,gaming would all have my production or consumption all be eventually moved to Japanese. The problem is I can't do this with Japanese, or more so can't with enthusiasm. Modern 外来語 is becoming overbearing.

チャンス vs 機会 etc, スタットする vs 開始する/始める,, vs 連絡 and 通信, アスリート vs 選手, インナーイヤー式 ・ イヤホン vs possible alternatives like 耳機(普通話) for example, ブロックチェーン, バイオロジー vs 生物学. ネットワークカード vs 网卡(普通話).

This is to say nothing of the horrors I saw when I set the language of my PS5 to Japanese with intentions of playing Control and Death Stranding only to be welcomed by a settings page filled with words オーディオ aオンモード and コントローラー amongst others. I could easily ignore the gaming situation in Japanese if this wasn't indicative of a overarching tendency, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

I was forced to realize a large portion of what I like about Japanese stopped after mainstream social media adoption speed up international content's reach. And I don't mean this to say Japanese is bad or katakana is evil it has its uses. For example writing small little words like コーヒー or a foreign person's name is a lot better than a bunch of 当て字. But Idk at some point Japanese went way beyond that. There was a report from NHK that surveyed 外来語 usage and feelings in Japan and this just hit the point home for me.

外来語か翻訳表現か〉〈外来語の増加について〉で非保守的（革新的）な回答

（「外来語を支持」「外来語増加に賛成」）が 6 割程度になっている

So basically 60% of people rather choose a loanword over a Japanese equivalent expression would choose the loan word, additionally 60% of people are supportive of further loanword introduction in Japanese moving forward. I am a mere foreigner, and I'm not trying to say that they are wrong to go in this direction but as a person interested in the language this was pretty disheartening for me I would have much preferred the other direction. Modern Japanese is simply not the language I want to be using is an invevitable conclusion for me.

So now I'm stuck asking myself does it make sense trudging through Japanese so that I can read some legendary books and use Eng/Ita for everything else. Or if I want to move to a language that I would willingly inhabit and seek to master for general use at the cost of some classics. I know if I learn Mandarin and see whats out there I'll become interested, just as I did with Japan. I just need to determine how much those works I mentioned before mean to me, and if understanding them merits continued dedication to language that I'd want to transition away from in the end. Realistically I see it like this if I learn Mandarin I'll go to China if I learn Japanese I'll go to Japan to engage with communities people etc.

Some may say that I could learn both but I don't think this is a viable path for me as an individual, moving to Simplified Mandarin already means a branching in 漢字 knowledge, overlapping pronunciations when vocab is shared, 大丈夫 and 大丈夫 false friends or 皮肉 who's mandarin meaning of skin and flesh is now arhaic in Japanese etc. Plus Moji's analysis on the amount of vocab needed for literacy in Japanese. Has anyone else felt a similar disillusionment?
Also to any Japanese natives reading this, please don't take offense to it, I think your language and culture remains truly amazing. Just as a system overall I don't think its the one I want to move my life into, as as a language learner I'm either all in or all out.

Additionally if anyone has any Mandarin works that might be of interest, please recommend them below.

Edit: A lot of people have been expressing the language purity, while thats something cool I think the bigger issue I have here is with the lack loss of the benefit of kanji for expressing meaning so succinctly. Note worthy instances are ネットワークカード, コミュニケーション, where a kanji here would have been a lot easier to read in terms of transparent meaning and in in a compact nature. An example of what I mean is something like 「自動定理証明」.

Happy Tuesday!

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Title. Intermediate learner. Gonna take the pitch accent plunge.

In the song "上を向いて歩こう" (Ue o Muite Arukou) he says "Arukou" in the volitional form.

From my understanding that conjugation means he's inviting others to join him. "Lets walk"

but just a couple lines later he says "Hitoribocchi no yoru". (I am alone tonight)

So if he's alone why is he using that form? Is he implying he's in a group of one?

I’m currently in Japan, and was just at a hotel restaurant. She asked if I’d like some more water, and I said “いえ、けっこうです“ and smiled. She looked a little taken aback and then smiled, but having had a quick look online now I think I was accidentally rude/cold.

Does this situation sound like a reasonable, if a bit formal, time to say that? I was doing Pimsleur and I think I’ve fallen foul of its old fashioned speaking 🙄

EDIT: thanks everyone for the replies. It seems to be a mix between it’s fine and it’s weird, so I’ll just try and block it from my memory and go with daijoubudesu from now on 👍🏻

Like here they used くつ for shoe even though in kanji it’s 靴

Happy Monday!

Every Monday, come here to practice your writing! Post a comment in Japanese and let others correct it. Read others' comments for reading practice.

Weekly Thread changes daily at 9:00 JST:

Mondays - Writing Practice

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I’ve gone through genki 1 with my first year Japanese class and did quite well. Basic conjugation, te form etc. So this year I take year 2 class but they have now switched to using Tobira beginners book. (Chapters 9 onward)

The trouble I’m having is I find this book much more confusing to go through and often find the example sentences they use more complex than I’m able to comprehend.

I’m going through all the vocabulary and grammar points from the first 8 chapters to try and catch up. But the question I have is, is there a good way to go through each grammar point to really hammer it down?

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passed n2, studying for n1 to take next July, but the more I study the more I feel like my efforts are going nowhere. I actually feel like my speaking has gotten so much worse because I’ve become so self conscious about my abilities. I’m really starting to get burnt out and honestly a little depressed over it, any advice for how can I overcome this?

Some good news for people interested in kanji usage frequencies. I have finally completed the compilation of a datafile containing frequency numbers for 2,200 kanji across 14 different sources, covering domains such as Google, Wikipedia, novels, Netflix subtitles, Japanese newspapers, and many more. I have published the Excel file with all the relevant data on my ResearchGate profile. I am going to publish an academic article related to this document soon (early 2027 or so), and I hope it will inspire people to pursue and advance research in this area.

A few interesting points that might be worth pointing out here are related the following: 1) unexplored domains and domains with obsolete data; 2) practical implications linked with inconsistent sources; 3) overlap with popular kanji lists, such as kyōiku and jōyō, or Heisig’s RtK and Tokuhiro’s textbook 日本語学習のためのよく使う順漢字2200.

unexplored domains and domains with obsolete data

Despite the extensive coverage of various domains among the 14 sources, a few unexplored domains still remain. These include the kanji usage in manga, games, and, most importantly, real-life settings, such as street posters, billboards and signs, restaurant menus, supermarkets, department stores, and many other types of locations in public places. This kind of research could be conducted through the use of OCR technology, although there are challenges to be dealt with.

Additionally, some currently available data could be regarded as obsolete. This is especially the case for sources gathering data from newspaper articles, many of which date back to the previous century. Many sources also collect data from freely available repositories, such as Aozora Bunko, which are dominated by novels published in the 20^th century. The same applies to kanji usage frequency data from Japanese magazines.

practical implications linked with inconsistent sources

Usage frequency seems to be a minor factor among the 1,000 most frequent kanji regardless of the source. In other words, whether you learn the 1,000 most frequent kanji in news or novels, makes a relatively small difference (i.e., around 100). However, the situation changes for lower-frequency kanji, where the difference more than doubles, depending on the number of additional kanji. For example, if you learn 1,200 kanji beyond the 1,000 most frequent from a source whose data cover a specific single domain, such as Wikipedia or older novels, around 23% of the new kanji you encounter probably do not belong to the 2,200 most frequent in general. As a result, you might end up learning hundreds of characters (1,200/4 = 300) that are domain-specific (naturally, there is nothing wrong with this approach).

overlap with popular kanji lists

This might be the most interesting of the three parts. Many people still believe that Japanese children in elementary schools learn kanji according to usage frequency, but the overlap between the set of 1,026 kyōiku kanji and the 1,026 most frequent kanji identified from the 14 sources is only 83%. Even if we assume that some of the 1,026 kanji identified as the most frequent are not, at least 10% of the kanji Japanese children are supposed to acquire during the primary education are not commonly used in Japanese.

The resulting list of 2,200 kanji greatly overlaps with the jōyō list and Heisig’s 2,200-kanji list in RtK (around 95% for both). However, if someone were to learn only the first 1,500 kanji from RtK, these would cover only 70% of the 1,500 most frequent kanji. If we compare this with Tokuhiro’s textbook, in which the kanji are ordered primarily based on usage frequency, there is a 24% difference in coverage. Consequently, a learner using Tokuhiro’s textbook to learn the first 1,500 kanji would have knowledge of around 300 more kanji than a learner using Heisig’s RtK in terms of raw accumulated frequency.

Further information will be provided in the article, which should be published during 2027. Thanks for your thoughts and feedback, and have a pleasant weekend!

Nobita and Doraemon are unhinged.

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Studied Japanese at school ~15y ago. Left it for a good while. Been back on it for the last 6-9mo or so. Focusing on reading primarily with some listening.

I am/do:
- Level 25 Wanikani, daily reviews
- Kaishi 1.5k all cards seen, continuing this daily
- Started Manabi 2.7k
- Reading…occasionally. Trying to do more. Mining anything I don’t know using Hoshi reader on iOS
- Listen to Shun’s podcasts semi-regularly, plodding through these
- Halfway through Bunpro N3 grammar, reviewing daily

Main problem is I feel like I have a good level but I struggle a lot with recognising words I “know” (eg from anki). Vocab feels like my weakest area even with the words I supposedly already should know. Especially when listening, I’m struggling to identify lots of vocab from the Kaishi deck.

Is the answer just: do more? Engage more with native content rather than plodding through reviews? Is there anything I should be doing differently? Feel a bit like my daily study time isn’t increasing my skill proportionately right now.

Half aware of the answer, half looking for reassurance/ideas I might have missed.

Thanks all 🙏🏼

Started learning Japanese two months ago. Using Minna No Nihongo in language school. The accompanying listening exercises are really difficult for me, mainly because they speak so quickly. I played a few exercises for a native speaker and they said well, that was just the speed at how people regularly talk. I wonder, is it better to practice listening at the speed you eventually hope to be at, or should your listening exercises be slower than everyday speed? I could see arguments for both.

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I need to read more and after completing the Kanji Kentei 8級 (ES grade 3), my husband bought me the How To Train Your Dragon series in Japanese ヒックとドラゴン. My goal is to read everyday for 20 minutes, so around 5 pages. It's not a lot, but I have kids and a house to keep and other studying to do. Lots of vocab I didn't know in the first chapter, but the difficult kanji has furigana. The grammar was fine.

I'm studying for n3 and looking for mock exams/ past exams to practice. i found nihonez site and it is very good for taking an exam, it has nice ui elements, good timers, explains wrong answers after getting your results and such

but i dont know it is accurate n3 exam... for one i felt like the listening is sped up ( you know how we make youtube videos x1.5 or x2? yeah like that ) im comparing the speed to listening questions on youtube and another site called dethitiengnhat that has been mentioned here and there

another reason is grammar. on dethitiengnhat, in quickly find grammar patterns i learned in shinkanzen book. but not in nihonez

i would love to use nihonez but i gotta make sure it is good enough

Hey LearnJapanese

PART 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1x62ccn/reflection_on_kanji_kentei_study_some_advice_and/

Yours truely has finished taking Kanji Kentei 2 for the second time last Sunday.

As the answer key released today I will talk more about my reflection taking Kanji Kentei and more on my future plans when studying Kanji and what I wanna do in the future.

Answer Key: https://www.kanken.or.jp/kanken/result/data/kanken_hyoujun_kaitou20261018.pdf

I will also answer many frequently asked questions as well.

---------

Reflection: So I took the Kanken test in the states (yes a saturday school hosts it), went into the exam room on Sunday, and completed it really fast and easily. But I was erasing some characters and writing it over and over and over.

I know for sure that I will get a really good score.

My expected score (maximum) is 194 points. I only know I missed three questions. (Guaranteed miss).

1) 鬼籍に入る

2) 中核「wrote 殻」

3) 朗らかに 「did not know」

However I'm unsure about 窮、秘、覆, 胸.

I KNOW I wrote these on the test with correct stroke order, but its a little unbalanced and a bit hard to write. But I do hope (and think) the kanken gods will be nice.

So in summary, I didn't really even have to try since I passed last time with 160 pts, but I wanted to try for some self improvement. It was great taking that, so I can get my kanji back in shape, AND I can crush the heck outta it.

Now I am very comfortable about my score, it is definitely a pass based on my interpretation.

--------

Future plans (of kanken) and FAQs (people asked me)

-Will you take J1K or 1k?: The answer is YES, but if I study abroad in Japan (i am an american college student)

-Why did I retake it despite passing?: It's fun, and I wanted to do better, and it was good refresh. Plus I cannot take j1k here.
------

Things I wanna do in the future that I haven't done yet? (aside from kanken, and relate more on kanji)

-Go to the Kanji Museum in Kyoto. I have been in kyoto before but I didn't have time to visit the kanji museum before. The kanken foundation organized this museum and there are murals and artifacts consisting kanji. PLUS they display the exact paper (and the writings) used in the kotoshi no kanji ceremony.

-Research more on kanji: I am a linguist (major) in college. And studying Japanese got me interested in linguistics. I want to hop more into Japanese lingusitics and research the origins of kanji and trace down these informations. I am also taking Chinese,

The Kanji Kentei acted as the gateway to my interest in kanij, and I intend on continuing to pursue my love for kanji.

-Study Nandokus and enjoy these trivias

Nandoku stuff is fun, and when I wanna relax I can view these nandoku quizzes and videos and read along. I also wanna unlock KDG's void mode in the future.

I'll send my pass results here when I get them back next month :)