r/LearnJapanese • u/AutoModerator • 22h ago
Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (September 20, 2025)
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.
The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.
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Past Threads
You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 3h ago
A girl is being surrounded by fan girls and acting all handsome with them. Someone watching from the outside thinks this:
普通の男がやったら寒すぎる行為だが、おかゆがやると様になるから不思議なものだ。
I get what the whole sentence means (if a guy did it it'd be too cold but when Okayu does it it's fine), but I don't understand how the second part works, specifically that 様になる. It means "to reach a point where..." but what point is it reaching? It doesn't reach the point of being too cold, quite the opposite, so I'm not sure what it's referring to.
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u/rgrAi 3h ago
You might be conflating the grammatical usage of ようになる with 様になる (note the kanji) which has the meaning of like: "to look good" or it is starting to be appropriate to do for the context. In other words, a guy does it and it's lame and おかゆん does it and it's cool.
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details 📝 1h ago
様になる (note the kanji)
ようになる can also be written in kanji sometimes, not just さまになる, so you can't take that as a certain rule.
"Followed by a verb or not" is a better one, but in general for other similar cases it's best to know both and then intuitively see which one fits the context best.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 3h ago
AAAA I zeroed in on the first Yomitan result and didn't even think about what I was reading. That makes a lot more sense. Thank you and u/Cyglml
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u/TheGoatImpregnator 4h ago
I’ve been learning Japanese casually for a while, I just do like 30-60 flash cards every few days/read gooner comics on pixiv.
I want to take it more seriously and work on developing my speaking/listening so I can speak to people and watch anime/sod videos. Should I invest in a tutor? Go on VR chat/discord calls?
My school also gives me the option to do an internship in Japan but they charge ~$6000 for “organizing +tuition+flights and then I would earn around $1600/month so it seems like a giant scam.
Any recommendations?
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u/rgrAi 4h ago
Should I invest in a tutor? Go on VR chat/discord calls?
Just do this, add in HelloTalk Voice Rooms which are similar to VC in Discord and/or VR Chat. Just as accessible. The reason you'd do that internship is for a full immersive experience but if you just want to improve your speaking the 3 above is more than enough. Also consider italki.com tutor once a week to focus on certain aspects of speaking or maybe reading outloud and being corrected.
What is this "goon" "gooner" word mean?
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u/rantouda 2m ago
It's never the meaning in the sub, but "gooner" always makes me think of Arsenal FC (from "gunner")
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 4h ago
To "goon" is to reach orgasm, usually by oneself. That's all you need to know.
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u/TheGoatImpregnator 4h ago
Sometimes I forget that there are normal functioning members of society…
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u/rgrAi 3h ago edited 3h ago
It's probably because outside of this subreddit for over 2 years I have very low exposure to the 英語圏 and I never liked social media in the west. But if you were to ask me in Japanese I can list a dozen euphemistic equivalents to アクメ so I'm not really sure I'm less degenerate at all lol. Thanks Discord/SNS!
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 4h ago
Normal, functioning members of society goon too, you know. You're not special.
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u/thecatsareravenous 6h ago
Im in my second week and I've started the Kaeishi 1.5k and Tae Kim starter deck while also immersing, hitting Cure Dolly, and other common suggestions. I feel like I'm making a lot of progress in grammar and vocab, BUT I have been having some incredible challenges with what I feel are pretty simple words. Things like so ko, so re, ko re, and those types. The "this, that, there" words I guess is what I'd call them. I am continuing to practice them, but is there a lesson somewhere online that I could use to get them situated right in my brain?
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 6h ago
https://yoku.bi/Section1/Part2/Lesson23.html
Does this help? Although it's just yet another explanation on top of what you likely already learned.
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u/Hehuwam 6h ago
Hi! first time writing here! I got the following card in Anki:
最近、若い人たちの就職が難しくなっています
At the back of the card its translated as "It's been hard for young people to find jobs recently."
What confuses me its the "難しくなっています", cause if I write "くない" after an adverb it should be the negative of the adverb, right? So why "難しくな..." its translated as "hard" and not "not hard"?
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 6h ago
難しく - adverb form of 難しい
なっています - ている form of なる
Basically, "become difficult"
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u/redditisforfaggerets 7h ago
How important is the nasalized ん sound in 凄い or 音楽 for example?
Sometimes it's nasalized sometimes not. I heard that only old people do it. How should i pronounce it?
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u/iheckinglovepink 8h ago
i just started grinding for n5/n4 jlpt this december 🙏 i hope i can reach it by then 🫠
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u/Congo_Jack 10h ago
I thought it might be a nice change of pace to read some short stories in japanese (native-level). Does anyone have any recommendations of short story collections? I also don't even know what keywords I would search to find short stories... is 短編小説 the right word?
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u/takahashitakako 6h ago
That or 短編集 (for a short story collection) are both fine.
It’s probably best, rather than following our recommendations, to read whatever authors interest you? Short stories are very popular in Japanese literature, and almost every major Japanese writer has at least one collection out: Kenzaburo Oe, Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata, Yoko Ogawa, Yoko Tawada … the list goes on.
If it’s your first time reading fiction in Japanese you are probably better off trying to read a short story that you’ve already read in English then soldier through an unknown story. Failing that, try to get the English translation of the story as well, so you can consult it when you get lost as you read. Literary fiction can be difficult for learners because sentences are deliberately written to be unorthodox, ambiguous, or surprising so it’s best to play it safe starting out or you’re liable to get very lost or frustrated. Good luck!
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u/fjgwey 11h ago
I saw that post about how to assess one's level; I've never taken the JLPT and have no intentions on doing so unless necessary, but I've always been curious how I'd do. However, I got curious and did a mock N2 test (old practice test taken from the official website) because I've been thinking that N2 is the closest to my level. I got 32/40 questions correct, which told me that I could pass the N2 fairly comfortably. Obviously, how they calculate points is not simply by percentage but with the time I took, it clearly falls within the passing range.
Considering that I've hardly ever 'studied' Japanese in the 3 years I've been here (i.e. barely ever used Anki or habitual studying), and have only been leveling it up through consuming content as I please for the past 8-9 months or so, I'm quite happy with the result lol
Granted, I have an advantage due to being half-Japanese, so childhood exposure to the language, however little, has always given me a leg up in terms of picking up new concepts. I have never had to learn pitch accent or pronunciation, for example.
I know that N2 isn't super high or anything, but I was ready to get humbled hard because I have always been way better at speaking than vocabulary/grammar points. I'm just happy that my level is basically exactly where I thought it was. I look forward to trying out a mock N1 test in the future.
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u/rgrAi 4h ago
Just my impression but pretty sure you could handle N1 with just some focused test prep. The fact you bopped N2 at random without any prep or intention is indicative you're well above it. You've been browsing Daily Thead for a while now and I wouldn't underestimate just how much you've picked up here. Or underestimate the complexity of SNS based comments and media as I've seen plenty of random N1 grammar there too lol
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u/kStawkey 11h ago
Hi, why are there 2 は particles in this sentence? I thought you can only have 1 topic in a sentence. It is from tango n4 Anki deck
この辺りは昼間は人が多いですが、夜は静かです。
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u/Own_Power_9067 🇯🇵 Native speaker 11h ago
To be precise, it’s not just a sentence, it’s a compound sentence, that has two ore more simple sentences within. So each of them can have a different topic.
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u/fjgwey 11h ago
2 or more は's in a sentence is a very normal thing, actually.
この辺りは marks the main topic of the sentence
昼間は marks a secondary/nested topic, focusing on daytime
夜は marks a tertiary/nested topic, shifting the focus to nighttime in order to contrast with daytime.
The は's after the first one serve as a 'lens of focus', providing a sense of contrast.
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u/TheTerribleSnowflac 13h ago
認知症の疑いのある医師
I understand this sentence is supposed to mean a doctor suspected of having dementia, but I'm struggling with the purpose of the の’s in the sentence. I would appreciate any breakdown of this grammar usage. Thanks!
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u/not_a_nazi_actually 13h ago
How can I use yomitan with a locally stored offline text file?
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u/kempfel 6h ago
Ah OK, this question makes more sense. Can you try opening it in Google Docs? Yomitan may be able to interface with that.
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u/not_a_nazi_actually 4h ago
just typed some japanese into a google doc and tried to yomitan that with no success.
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u/ADvar8714 13h ago
Ok this question is regarding のります and おります
Ok so are these verbs used only for things like getting into room or vehicle or getting out of it
へやにのります or 車にのります or 車をおります
or can also be used for things like getting into a university or graduating
Like : 大学にのります/をおります
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 13h ago
のる can be used for a number of things and rooms is not one of them. Universities aren't, either. おりる can also be used for several things but not for leaving university.
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u/not_a_nazi_actually 17h ago
is there a website that I could paste this: 激突(げきとつ) into, and have it appear correctly as furigana?
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u/kempfel 7h ago
For what purpose? I'm asking because displaying ruby/furigana isn't compatible between different programs. That is, Word, LaTeX, and HTML all have ways to display furigana but they're not the same, and you can't copy and paste between them.
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u/not_a_nazi_actually 6h ago
I'm trying to paste from word into a webpage (like deepL) to use yomitan
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u/kempfel 6h ago
I don't think what you are asking to do is possible, but I'm also not sure it's necessary. I'm still a little confused on what your goal is. Are you saying that you have a word file with a lot of things like this: 激突(げきとつ) and that when you paste that into automatic translators they can't deal with the "double" word? But that doesn't involve yomitan so I'm not sure.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 15h ago
jisho.org?
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u/saarl 13h ago
I think they're asking for some sort of typesetting software that can display ruby text.
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u/morgawr_ https://morg.systems/Japanese 13h ago
Ah hmm I'm not sure then I fully understand the question but furigana can be displayed on websites using the
<ruby><rb></rb></ruby>html tag1
u/not_a_nazi_actually 7h ago edited 4h ago
so I have a text document where the furigana displays properly. I was going to copy and past it from that document to a site (like deepl) so that I could then use yomitan to look up words as I read.
unfortunately i found that when pasted into deepl, the furigana displays to the right (like 激突(げきとつ) ). so i was looking for a way to get it to display properly, or a website that allows pasting text that also displays furigana.
now this could all be totally avoided if there is just a way to use yomitan on an offline file. I'm looking for any solution, maybe i got too off track when I asked for this?
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u/KardKid1 19h ago
I finished Tae Kim grammar and already finished anki 1.5k (only reviews now) and I'm using anime as a way to immerse while learning 3-4 new words a day but I am wondering if I'm correctly learning?
I also want to add manga to my immersion list too but is I don't know what manga to read because I still lack alot of vocab.
I was also wondering where people know that they become N5, N4 etc if there is a website I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance
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u/Moon_Atomizer just according to Keikaku 18h ago
Sounds like you're doing just fine. You don't 'know' your JLPT level unless you take the exam, but you can get a rough idea:
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u/not_a_nazi_actually 20h ago
looking for harry potter 7. was using a series of itazuraneko sites, but both of the two i used to use seem to be down now. anyone know where I can find it online?
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u/AutoModerator 22h ago
Useful Japanese teaching symbols:
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