LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (May 20, 2025)

  • May 20, 2025

This thread is for all simple questions, beginner questions, and comments that don't need their own post.

Welcome to /r/LearnJapanese!

Please make sure if your post has been addressed by checking the wiki or searching the subreddit before posting or it might get removed.

If you have any simple questions, please comment them here instead of making a post.

This does not include translation requests, which belong in /r/translator.

If you are looking for a study buddy or would just like to introduce yourself, please join and use the # introductions channel in the Discord here!

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Seven Day Archive of previous threads. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.

by AutoModerator

13 comments

  1. I’m not looking for a translation per se, thus why I’m posting here: How would you say a question like “Wouldn’t you rather ____?” I’m struggling to think of how to formulate this sort of sentence in colloquial Japanese. Or is there just not a good parallel to this?

    The best I’ve come up with is ____ したいと思いませんか? But I’m rusty with Japanese and I get the feeling this might not be right.

  2. I wanted to get into anki again with the 2k/6k deck but I found 3 versions and I’m not sure which one is the best.

    I got them from this video’s description: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=husCWKdxiRI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=husCWKdxiRI)
    [Core 2k/6k deck](https://djtguide.neocities.org/anki)
    [Alternative Core 2k/6k that includes pitch accent graphs + stroke order](https://github.com/amaank404/Core2k6k_All_in_one)
    [Shortened + slightly optimized Core 2.3k deck for those who want to start making their own cards through sentence mining as soon as possible](https://anacreondjt.gitlab.io/docs/coredeck/)

    Also is there a deck specifically for オノマトペ / mimetic stuff?

  3. Hello 😀

    I’m working on the exercises in the back of Genki 2 for lesson 13 and I came across this sentence for what to do for the exercises: 下のa-dのどの写真だと思いますか。

    I have just two short questions.

    1) I’m confused by the second の in the sentence. I understand 下のa-d, but why is there another の after it making it 下のa-d**の**どの写真だ? What is it doing? Is it making どの写真 part of the noun?

    2) I fully understand what (下のa-dのどの写真だと思いますか) is telling me to do, but I’m not 100% sure what its translation in English is. Is it just “which picture do you think below a-d?”

    Thank you so much in advance! I appreciate your time. 😀

  4. Does anyone have any good fully Japanese gaming yt channels? I want some new immersion stuff!

  5. My native language is Spanish, but I’m proficient enough on English to speak, watch movies, read books and write Reddit posts

    That said how hard would it be to learn Japanese completely on my own, as a third language?

    Something that helped my grasp of English was associating English word with their representation rather than their translation, movies and song helped my fine tune my speaking

  6. Hello,

    Could you suggest videos or reading material on kanji theory(?) and it’s components?

    What I mean by kanji theory, is stuff about kanji that are not particular to a singular kanji. and when I am done with the material, I don’t expect to have gained knowledge about specific kanji but a framework that would help me to study kanji in general in terms of meaning, pronunciation and memorization.

    I hope that makes sense.

    Thanks.

  7. I’m at a point where I’m keen to start reading a VN, and just slam myself into immersion. I’ve been looking for a good one to start with, since I figure leaping into a super long and complex one to start will probably burn me out, but all of the easy rated one on sites like VNDB and JPDB seem to be just full-on porn (i mean really, is 彼女のセイイキ really what you want to name a VN?)
    Are there any good starter VNs that aren’t like this? I’m fine with a little bit but I’d like to be able to read on my phone in public. I’m aware I’m going to need to look up a lot of words, but if I can find something that won’t take me all year to read that would be great

  8. In this sentence, why is dewa used instead of just wa?

    もっと南の沖縄地方では、まだ梅雨は始まっていません。

    if it were just wa, it would mean “as for further south than okinawa” but de wa makes it “as for in further south than okinawa” doesnt it? which is basically the same thing?

  9. im starting with learning hiragana but im not sure how exact i need to be copying the letters. i have a workbook where ive been writing the letter for A so far but i need someone to check if my handwriting is too messy or anything. if anyone is willing to check it for me i can dm u a pic pls and thx

  10. Right now I’m using yomitan to mine anime, one click for definition, reading, pitch accent graph, and word audio is great but I want to be able to take sentence audio from anime I’m mining from, what’s the best way to do this?

  11. What should I do when I can’t understand a grammar point even with a lot of rereading or reading and watching stuff about it from different sources? Specifically, I’m at wits’ end regarding how to understand 時. I’ve read the Genki section, watched the [Tokini Andy video](https://youtu.be/YiMChZ5egFc?si=p4ECHllwJDoi-kVg&t=2195), and read the [Tofugu article](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/toki/), but nothing still seems to make sense.
    Specifically regarding 時 though, I think a huge part of my problem is that thinking about tenses or time is almost a completely foreign concept to me, I’ve never had to think about it in English, but now I’m extremely confused when I’m seeing something other than the usual English patterns.

  13. Can someone suggest a good anki deck or resource that focuses on vocab and kanji learning? I took classes in college and would like to pick it back up again. My grammar is not bad but I’ve forgotten most kanji by now. 

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