13 comments

1. I need help understanding this panel https://imgur.com/a/CBvwnVr. The guys were shopping for dinner.

   1. What does 彩りと品数をとる mean? To take coloring and variety of side dishes or something? What does each word 彩り, 品数, and とる mean?

   2. What does 優柔不断なことは一番感じてる mean? He is aware that he is indecisive? What does 感じる mean here?

2. I’m trying to read Wikipedia pages in Japanese about animals I’m interested in, but they have a lot of specific vocabulary that makes them hard to follow. I’m N3 studying for N2 for reference. It’s an amount of new words that is just overwhelming, specially because I’d like to handwrite a couple sentences on a notebook to practice writing kanji.

   Do you think using ChatGPT to “dumb down” the content could be a good way to start taking steps towards being able to read the real thing?

   I have an extremely hard time finding content in Japanese at my level that I truly enjoy, specially because I’m mostly interested in more technical biology texts/books/articles. I end up in this spot that texts that are my level are uninteresting and native content is too overwhelming. I can deal with Yokai Watch and 3DS games on that vibe and I’m reading Doraemon just fine, but I really would like to read some biology stuff.

   I tried generating a text like that and it seems to fix my issues, but I feel a little wary of using AI. What d you think?

3. Do Japanese actually use the character 廿 (twenty)?

   I learned 廿 from Heisig, and although he does say that it’s an old character, I swear I’ve seen it in the wild before (not that I can remember when or where; I might be imagining it). But recently I asked a Japanese friend (27F) how she would usually write ２０日 in Kanji: 二十日 or 廿日? In fact, she told me she had never even SEEN the character 廿. So what gives? Is it like the Japanese equivalent of Roman numerals or something? Is it even actually one of the 2200ish standard Kanji? Does anybody ever actually use it for anything?

4. Transcription [help](https://www.reddit.com/r/Japaneselanguage/s/vtI0UaNlaA), please? 「女の子の本来の清純さ○○さ真の美しさを○○にはセーラー服が一番だと私は訴えたい！」

5. Can anyone who’s a Japanese boxing fan help me out. I want to know what the Japanese coaches/assistants yell out when there’s a minute left in a round. I know they say sanju when there’s 30 seconds left and hafu taimu with 90 seconds left.

6. How to make sense of this insult 童貞こじらせチキンえせ紳士? I am not sure where こじらせ fits in. As far as I can tell, it is composed of 3 words: 童貞, こじらせチキン and えせ紳士. I wonder if こじらせチキン an actual term meaning chicken who tends to create problems.

7. Is there a reason ko in hiragana does not appear when I type it on romaji keyboard? When I type ko こ and other characters like water appear instead.

   Edit: iPhone keyboard

8. I’m just starting out learning Japanese mostly using anki to get basic vocab down. I find I often switch syllables around for words, which can be frustrating. I feel like I know the word and what it means but I keep flipping the pronunciation around. Is there a name for this phenomenon? I’d like to learn how to avoid it.

9. so ive got a good grasp on hiragana but dont have much vocab down. i figured a good way to practice my hiragana would be flash cards. spent a while looking for an anki deck with hiragana on the front and romaji and english on the back and wasnt able to find any good ones, so i made my own. ill put the link here since i cant make a post about it and hopefully people find it useful.
   [hiragana vocab practice](https://ankipro.net/shared_deck/v2_TckMLcyBY2_6536430)

10. I looked up Ursula K. Le Guin on Wikipedia. In katakana, her name is apparently “アーシュラ・K・ル＝グウィン”.

    I’ve never even seen the ＝ symbol before. What does it mean?

11. Hello,

    I live out of Japanese and i don’t speak any Japanese, however I’m using an ecoomerce shopping forwarding service to shop items from Japanese stores.

    They gave me an address to use which is in English letters instead of japanese characters, and the delivery company is now asking me for the address to be written in japanese instead of english letters. I tried to use google translate but it seems japanese addresses have a different way or being written which translation tools are not capable of doing.

    Can someone help me translate it from English to Japanese in the proper Japanese addressing format.

    I would really appreciate the help.
    Regards

12. Hi all, I’ll soon be meeting someone IRL in Japan that I’ve had a working relationship with for a few years. When we first meet in person is it still right to say hajimemashite even though we’ve known each other online for years?

    Also a Japanese friend once told me a phrase for “good to see you again” that sounded something like “yokatta hayate” (I may be off with the spelling there) but I’ve not come across it since then – does anyone know what it might have been?

13. I’m planning on taking N1 again this year in December as i really want to get the qualification. I’ve taken it once already and wasn’t close to the pass mark which really got me down but I want to improve on my weakest areas. Those being grammar and reading. I got the 新完全マスターシリーズ for 読解と文法 to try and remedy this and pass the test but I think Im just finding it really hard to remember the many types of grammar and context for the answers in N1 reading as the answers are very nuanced in their differences.

    What are some good grammar learning strategies and N1 level reading material that’s helped you pass the exam? Should I be focusing on more news articles and reading novels as I’m currently doing?