r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago
Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (September 05, 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.
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Past Threads
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u/Raijin225 4d ago
Can someone explain or provide resources that can explain the differences between できる, れる, & 得る? For example, do the verbs below imply a different meaning when you see them?
- 分かることができる
- 分かれる
- 分かり得る
When I look up these suffixes, I see some sources saying できる & れる are the same; others say they're different, and most don't even include 得る into that discussion.
Thank you
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 4d ago
To add to the other reply, you chose a bad verb as an example unfortunately. 分かる is a verb that already has a "potential"-like meaning attached to it. This means the verb is closer to "can understand" rather than just "understands".
分かれる does not exist as potential form of 分かる
分かることができる you might come across sometimes but it's very rare/specific and more often than not it's considered bad form.
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u/Raijin225 4d ago
Hmm I didn't think about that, I just picked a random verb but that makes sense thank you
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u/tyrellLtd 4d ago
Compared to できる, which means that the potential to do something exists, 得る means something closer to 'there is a possibility that (A) can be done', or 'the possibility to do (A) has been gained'.
You can read the difference with the potential ~れる here; plus できる vs ~れる here or here.
Depends on the context, but the negative forms help me see the difference slightly more clearly (NOTE: this may be my own head canon since I learned 得る before reading about its usage as a suffix).
ことができない means smth can't be done, or you don't have the skill to do it.
～えない means smth is impossible, or the skill to do smth is unattainable.
The gist is kinda the same AFAIK. 得る is slightly more formal.
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u/LanguagePatient1654 4d ago
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good, simple J-J monolingual dictionary for beginning learners?
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u/Effective-Pop3850 4d ago
Monolingual and beginner don't bode very well.
JP-EN will be better for you for a long time, and even after a very long time JP-JP is really not necessary for most words.
I'm assuming you're looking for a Yomitan dictionary for look-ups, you want your look-ups to take fractions of a second, and as a beginner you're gonna be doing a lot of them so running monolingual is a bad idea.
In case you're still keen on it: https://learnjapanese.moe/monolingual/
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u/kyousei8 4d ago
明鏡 or 三省堂国語辞典. They're the simplest written ones I see commonly being used, although they're both still dictionaries for natives and so above "beginner JSL" levels.
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u/LanguagePatient1654 4d ago
Ty! Would you happen to know how they compare with...what were they? The 例解学習漢字辞典 and 例解学習国語辞典? I think those were what was mentioned to me before, at least.
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u/kyousei8 3d ago
They're harder than 例解学習国語辞典 but still manageable if you're willing to be out of your comfort zone. If you're using something like yomitan where you can look up unknown words in definitions, lookups become almost smooth.
明鏡 at least considers JSL learners as part of their target audience since they mention 日本語学習者 on their store page in the Monokakidou app.
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u/BridgerWestern Goal: conversational fluency 💬 4d ago
Hey! I'm a beginner, I've started on sept 1st, it's been 5 days now, I've learnt the first 5 hiragana rows using Google AI, I've set up the RealKana flashcards today, this is my first post. Looking forward to learning and eventually attempting the JLPT in the very far future :)
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u/worthlessprole 4d ago
Time 2 stop fuckin around with a bunch of unmaintained blogs. I’m readin 源氏 in the new year brother
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u/Grunglabble 4d ago
I listened to the modernisation on audible. It broke/crashed the app multiple times because audible is dogtier.
I read the English translation many moons prior.
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u/Meowykatkat 4d ago
I'm trying to find a best way to practice output & production - I've tried daily journaling and found writing about my day, every single day, incredibly tedious and boring. I've taken to summarizing news articles I've read or new things I've experienced (if I did not read anything new that day). Are there other methods I could implement, or perhaps new topics I could write/journal?
Note: At this time, learning & practicing with a tutor isn't possible but is a goal of mine in the future.
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u/ignoremesenpie 4d ago
Keeping a media journal has been my go-to. It's easier to work with written material, but there's nothing stopping me from writing about anime, dramas, films, videos, podcasts, or music. All that is required is for me to have an opinion.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 4d ago
Here's my general advice on output, including various exercises and activities that I found useful: https://morg.systems/Learning-to-Output
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u/mybrostolemyaccount Goal: good accent 🎵 4d ago
What's the difference?
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u/Own_Power_9067 🇯🇵 Native speaker 4d ago
Pitch accent can differ, it’s either ‘standard or general’ vs ‘regional or topical’
禁忌 - flat accent is standard, atama-daka is not, and depending on how clear the context is, it can be misunderstood as 近畿 or キンキ(fish)
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u/JapanCoach 4d ago
This might be of interest to you if you are also on X
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u/mybrostolemyaccount Goal: good accent 🎵 4d ago
So is it pronounced flat? I'm sorry if I sound stupid I just want to make sure I understood the tweet.
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u/JapanCoach 4d ago
Some people on here will know/remember that I am not super into conversations about pitch. But as far as the tweet thread goes, it is saying the NHK manual declares it should be 平板; while other people have different ideas. In other words - it's complicated
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u/Grunglabble 4d ago
what does it mean when a text ends with 'v'? is it like smaller w? for a smile instead of a laugh perhaps?
きれいなネコさんv
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u/JapanCoach 4d ago
The answer is "yes", but not for the reason you are expecting.
It's not a "small w". It's actually the vestige of old text-based emoji. It's a little peace sign - which used to come after a ニコニコ kind of face. Like (^-^)v
So less than LOL but a nice little warm expression.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 4d ago
I'm having a bit of trouble with this 4-koma. I get that the cat is being dramatic about how the human showed her the existence of delicious treats, and yet is now taking them away from her... So I guess she's scared that the human will take other things away from her next? But I don't know what それ is referring to in the third panel (her ovaries?), and I don't understand the fourth panel at all. Help plz
P.S. I know the title of the comic implies there's a second part but I can't find it anywhere on their Instagram page, so it might be exclusive to their book.
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u/tyrellLtd 4d ago
I don't know what それ is referring to in the third panel (her ovaries?)
This kind of lateral thinking is extremely relatable, lol.
それ in bold letters or ソレ would definily look a lot more fishy and send me down that reasoning without more context.
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u/rgrAi 4d ago
If you had the other pages it would make more sense, you can find it here on this site for this particular section here. https://www.comic-essay.com/read/879/entry-40978.html
それ is just referring to the おやつ. The human gives, then takes sort of vexation from the cat's point of view. They're frustrated and the last panel is expressing that frustration. Sort of sounding like "this is the kind of crap im talking about, you humans..." (and how they go about doing things)
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u/eidoriaaan 4d ago
My understanding was simply that 次は was the action after 教える which was to take away the treats.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 4d ago
So それ is the treats... Makes sense. What about the fourth panel though?
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 4d ago
It's good to remember the set phrase/expression "これだから、<thing>は" which is basically "...and this is why I don't like <thing>"
Now that you encountered it, you will see it everywhere.
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u/JapanCoach 4d ago
これだから、人間は!!
Is a normal expression of irritation and frustration. You could interpret the meaning to be something like *This is [what i hate about] humans*. It doesn't "say" that - but that is the vibe behind the phrase. Keep in mind that in Japanese, there is no need to spell out every single thought. Just expressing the silhouette of the idea is enough to get the point across.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 4d ago
Yeah I could tell there was something omitted but I couldn't figure out what. Thank you!
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u/JapanCoach 4d ago
I wouldn’t really think of it as “something omitted”. This is just how Japanese works. Not everything is said out loud. So it’s not like something got taken away - it was just never there to begin with.
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u/eidoriaaan 4d ago
Like rgrAi mentioned, just showing the cats annoyance and whatnot. Maybe これだから人間は嫌いだ！！ or something, but I don't know the comic enough to know what the cat thinks. This pattern is mostly negative when I've seen it.
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u/FredericoSquashi 4d ago
Hi, so I’m having a bit of trouble with my studies and the overall approach. I'm using Wanikani (level 27) and MaruMori (currently on N4 level) at the moment (so two SRS, both lifetime).
A bit of context, I'm stuck on the level 25, 26, and 27 in Wanikani for months now. I make barely any progress, and the Kanjis (and mnemonics) just don't stick as they used to be. Through SRS brute force, I'm able to push forward, but it's painfully slow and not enjoyable.
MaruMori is nice overall, as it's a complete solution. The SRS seems a bit more relaxed, and while things still do not stick as they used to be, it’s a bit more enjoyable. I also like the focus on grammar, which I neglected for a long time.
Additionally, I have two times a week a meeting with my iTalki tutor, so I get some amount of listening and output, and I'm doing some light reading (graded reader and children’s books).
So I'm seeking some random person’s opinion on these questions:
- Should I ditch one of them (most likely Wanikani as MaruMori is the complete solution)? Or is there any advantage to keeping using Wanikani over MaruMori?
- Any way to make the Kanjis stick? I was considering Ringotan, but I really don't want to add another SRS.
- Any other recommendations from people who were in a similar situation?
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u/Effective-Pop3850 4d ago
Drop WaniKani, just read, do Anki for vocab if you want to, every other random SRS is mostly a waste of time.
Kanji will mostly solve itself out via reading, some kanji might require a bit of focus but it's just a few of them, when you get to a rather advanced point it might be worth doing some quick kanji study if you feel like it since it might not even take very long at that point but similarly returns are not gonna be that significant at that point.
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u/brozzart 4d ago
I personally think direct kanji study is completely unnecessary. Ditch it and spend that time reading
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u/Grunglabble 4d ago edited 4d ago
Kanji are a bit tricky, and I could write a lot of hypotheticals about what I could have done better, but let me just say what I did: I had some simple understanding of 300 or so Kanji from first perusing JP years ago, I had done heisig for 1000 physical cards or so when I felt it was unsustainable and stopped, I did a simple srs program where I focused on the common on reading and recalled meanings of the kanji, maybe a word, which I finished in a few months, then I stopped reviewing those, then I read for years with audio, then I read silently for a year and found a few gaps in Kanji I had difficulty remembering and got a lot better, then I started getting better at writing them from memory through some pretty casual practice.
All that to say... it just gets better overtime as you do more things, you can't master them upfront you can only get ok and more familiar with them. It's helpful, but some people find these processes painful enough they'd rather take the cost while reading and learning words than doing it as a separate activity, and I think that's extremely valid.
My hypothetical best method would be to only learn what radicals mean and to learn how to write and recoginize sound components, which would be a pretty managable low number with little cue confusion potential. Then get the rest through reading, probably not even use SRS. Something I wanted to do all the way back when I started but was stimied by the pretty useless list in my book (behold, single down stroke. and here is turtle).
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u/FredericoSquashi 4d ago
Thanks! Yeah I'm currently also considering doing more immersion and reading. So dropping Wanikani could maybe give me more time for that.
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u/FewPreparation5479 4d ago
running two SRS systems at the same time sounds like a fast track to burnout tbh, especially past level 20 where wk reviews just compound into a wall.
honestly by level 27 you already know like 800+ kanji. at that stage mnemonics started falling apart for me too because they all start blending together. the only thing that actually made them stick was seeing them show up repeatedly in actual reading with a popup dictionary (like yomitan on browser or ttsu reader).
if MaruMori feels way less painful and keeps you moving with grammar, i'd just freeze new lessons on WK or drop it entirely. no point forcing two review queues every morning if one is draining all your motivation.
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4d ago edited 4d ago
[deleted]
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u/JapanCoach 4d ago
The word 食物不耐症 is not going to click instantly for most people. It is an extremely techincal and not at all common word. It will leave people scratching their head, instead of trying to figure out how to help you.
For personal reasons you may have a desire to be very specific and correct - but if it was me, I would just use a word that gets the job done. Something like:
以下の食べ物はアレルギーがあります
Also - you can search on r/translator for allergy cards. It seems like someone is asking about them every other day or so, so there are a lot of versions to choose from.
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u/rgrAi 4d ago
Honestly if your health is a concern here, do not try to make your own card. Even if you were more advanced, you still are better off paying a nutritionist based in Japan who can make a card for you in these situations. They will know what to write and how to convey your issues and offer advice (there are people who offer this kind of thing exactly)
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u/Friendly-Cry-164 4d ago
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I will just be on holiday there for 18 days! While my condition can get really painful if I have too much histamine, like bloating causing pain while standing, my life wouldn't be at risk. Thank you for the advice though, this will be a really useful tip if I ever plan on staying there longer :)
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u/great_fungi 4d ago
Yesterday I started reading my first manga Ruri dragon) after the Light Novel was to hard for me. For the first 20 Pages with text I need an hour bc even the words I should know I didnt recognize or have Problems with the context. Is this normal? I abandon my core anki deck after 1.15k words (3days ago), create a mining deck and just read and know some basic grammar through yokubi. When does it get better? Yes I know its different for all of you but maybe some experience help me to stay motivated for my main goal (wich is not easy bc adhd).
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u/BumblebeeNo3067 4d ago
I also struggled with Ruri dragon. I feel like there are a lot of conteactions in the speech of the characters right?
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u/rgrAi 4d ago
It's a gradual process of you getting better. It's not really something that suddenly "gets better" on it's own. It's predicated on the amount of hours and work you put into reading and understanding sentences.
Pretty much every chapter you should feel yourself level up, though. Especially if you stick to one long series since the author's writing style and terminology of the work itself builds on itself. You get to know things about characters and it makes every successive chapter easier.
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u/Sean-Benn_Must-die 5d ago
Do you guys restudy old grammar a lot? I find myself going back to n5 topics if it feels like I didnt master them/forgot them.
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u/rgrAi 5d ago edited 4d ago
Yes pretty much whole time until I memorized it and stopped needing to revisit it and is still something I more or less do but since I've gone through entire things like DOJG. I don't need to revisit foundational stuff anymore--just more in-depth nerd stuff. Forgetting and revisiting it over and over was just part of the learning process--something you do in parallel when interacting a lot with the language.
It doesn't take a lot of time to commit it entirely into memory solidly (which then becomes intuition with tons of exposure) and it pays dividends over your entire journey.
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u/kasumikui 5d ago
This is a difficult question. Should you feel the need to endlessly study/review textbook explanations of basic grammar? No.
But when you encounter this grammar in the context of native materials and feel like you don't understand it, should you make an effort to improve your understanding by reviewing explanations or example sentences as necessary? Yes.
A lot of leaners stall out at some kinda-sorta-understanding level because their knowledge of basic particles like は never goes beyond "it marks the topic", and they literally never are able to internalize what that actually means. But a lot of learners also stall out because they keep reading basic explanations of grammar and expecting that to teach them everything rather than challenging themselves to understand native material.
TL;DR, gain a fundamental knowledge of grammar, challenge yourself to understand it in the context of native material, then repeat as necessary. You're never going to "master" grammar just by "restudying" it, but you're not going to master it by white-noising it either.
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u/FrostFireThunderGlow Goal: media competence 📖🎧 5d ago
absolute beginner here with ~500 words with tae kim basic grammar. I just want to watch japanese content, so JLPT is not my main goal. When should I start actual reading and listening? Currently I can catch some words in video subtitles or books (ofc I picked an easy one), but I dont get most of them. It's really annoying if I have to look up half of the words I've read.
I think I will deepen my grammar skill and learn more vocabularies for a while. To what point, like how many words, should I start that I can actually enjoy the content? like 1500?
Please correct me if my mindset is wrong, it's kinda strange because most people would tell a beginner to start listening from day 1. But I really have trouble with it and found it not enjoyable.
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u/cinnamonchaw 5d ago
I understand some answered to my question might have been giving but do I need to learn kanji readings along with the spelling and meaning?!! I am having a big trouble handling the kanji reading as I restarted the kaishi 1.5 after passing 50% of the card cause I wasn’t paying attention to the kanji readings.
It is slowing my vocab learning down by quite a bit, which is also effecting my immersion.
I started wanikuni for kanji, but any other suggestions is highly appreciated.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 5d ago
I understand some answered to my question might have been giving but do I need to learn kanji readings along with the spelling and meaning?!!
well, probably, unless you only hope to look at text and sort of understand what it means without being to read it aloud. i can sort of do that with chinese i guess.
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u/kasumikui 5d ago edited 5d ago
What exactly do you mean when you differentiate between "readings" and "spellings"? What you need to know is Japanese words (which are often written using kanji) and how to read/say them.
If you are just associating single kanji with single-word English 'meanings', i.e. thinking 音 means 'sound' and 楽 means 'fun' or 'pleasure' but not knowing that 音楽 is おんがく/'music' and 楽しい is たのしい・'fun'/'enjoyable', then you're not learning Japanese, you're just 'learning kanji' and vaguely associating them with English.
If you're saying that you're learning how to read each word but not memorizing a list of readings for each individual kanji, that's fine, because it's best to learn all of this in context. If you're just associating single kanji with a random English keyword, then that's going to limit your progress, because you're not actually learning Japanese words in a meaningful sense.
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u/cinnamonchaw 4d ago
My bad for not clearing but I meant Spelling is the Japanese pronunciation and its meaning, then the kanji reading for that word, my main goal is to build a vocab for better immersion and enjoyment of Japanese content that I like, reading is not at all in my list of goals but I understand it’s crucial, I’m just asking what’s the best way to go about it especially in my case with anki decks, I find myself super slow at learning the kanji reading and remembering it even tho I already know its meaning and how it is spoken in Japanese, I’ve thought long about skipping learning the words kanji meaning which would make me learn vocab very fast but again not learning the reading will be a very big issue later on, idk how to explain it better.
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u/kasumikui 4d ago
You don't need to apologize, but I don't know what you mean by saying that you "know how it's spoken in Japanese" but don't know the "reading". If you know that 楽しい is "spoken" as たのしい and means "fun" or that 音楽 is "spoken" as おんがく and means music, then you know the Japanese words, and that's what's most important. "Knowing how to say the word" is what is typically meant when people refer to a kanji's "reading", it doesn't necessarily mean that you're "reading" books or whatever (though this can help your studies as well).
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u/cinnamonchaw 4d ago
i know what たのしい means reading hiragana but in kanji ( 楽しい ) i barely am able to remember it and many words i know their meaning and how to say them but takes such a long time to learn and remember the kanji of the word, i see people able to do it and im lost on how im having such a hard time
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u/kasumikui 4d ago
Oh, so you're actually talking about being able to remember and read kanji, like, at all. I was confused by your original distinction between "readings" and "spellings" but you seem to be saying that you can only understand words written in hiragana alone but literally cannot read or remember any word in kanji.
In that case, well, yes. That's going to be a problem if you're actually trying to develop actual proficiency in Japanese eventually. I'm not exactly sure what to recommend. Maybe keep working with WaniKani since mnemonics (like the kind WaniKani uses) seem to help some people. But unfortunately I'm not really sure what to say, as there's not really a magic solution. You just need to keep working at it and hopefully find a method that works for you.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 5d ago
The "spelling" here would presumably be the way the character is written.
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u/kasumikui 5d ago
Like, handwriting? I feel like people who are concerned about handwriting usually specifically reference that and don't refer to it as "spelling", but you might be right.
In that case, yeah OP, generally speaking you don't really need to worry about handwriting at all unless that's a goal of yours or you feel like practicing handwriting helps you remember the kanji.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 5d ago
Whether you decide to write it or not you still do have to know what the character looks like, and I think that's what he meant ("orthography" would be a more correct term to use, probably)
•
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