LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (July 08, 2025)

  • July 8, 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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10 comments

  1. Just wanted to share that after about 6 months of self-study, I finished Genki I+II! 🥳 I have Quartet but probably will take a short break from new grammar to review everything.

    Also just set my iPhone to Japanese and thank god for all the katakana words 😅 I’m hoping the exposure will help me read katakana faster and I’m making flashcards for all the UI kanji/vocab I don’t know yet. It’s gonna be a long and slow process but I hope to be able to use my phone effectively in Japanese one day!

  2. Are video games/visual novels (given that they have voice acting) beneficial for practicing Japanese listening? I find that I tend to learn better when doing hands on work, so passive stuff like movies/anime don’t always keep my interest for too long.

  3. A slightly different question than the usual, but what’s the *process* of registering for JLPT like in the USA? I’ve found the JLPT USA site that basically says “details to come in July and registration in August”, but moment for moment what’s it like?

    Is it one of those things where I need to strike *right* as it opens up to have a chance of getting registered? Will I have flashbacks to trying to buy a Wii in 2006?

    What kind of payment options do they offer? Is paypal an option? I have a credit card but if it fills up *fast* I might not want to waste the precious seconds it takes to punch in my credit card number, that *has* screwed me out of some limited release products.

    I’m planning on applying for N3 which I’d imagine has fewer takers than N5 and N4 but yeah, I’ve seen how limited-supply things can run out quickly online, though you probably aren’t gonna have ebay scalpers buying up *a test* the way you do for the latest game console drops. There’s only one location in a reasonable distance to me and I realize with how scarce they are that I’m lucky to have even one so I’m honestly more tense about *getting* the test than taking it lol.

  4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1lrwxzu/comment/n1hvj1n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1lrwxzu/comment/n1hvj1n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

    u/AcheesyTree u/JapanCoach

    The question has already been answered, the following is additional information for your reference.

    [現代日本語文法2 第3部格と構文 第4部ヴォイス｜くろしお出版WEB](https://www.9640.jp/book_view/?460) P. 236-

    (The original explanations are written in Japanese.)

    ***Please note that the original text is roughly twice the length of what’s provided below. It would take over an hour to type it all out, so I haven’t included any explanations about even slightly exceptional cases. What follows covers only the most fundamental concepts.***

    # Section 4: Indirect Passive Sentences

    An indirect passive sentence is a passive sentence where the subject is a person not directly involved in the situation expressed by the corresponding active sentence. The speaker subjectively associates this person with the situation, expressing that the person has been affected in some way by that situation.

    * 佐藤さんは交通事故でご子息に死なれて,気落ちしている。

    The agent of an indirect passive sentence is indicated by “に.”

    * その作家はライバル{に/*によって/*から}新作を発表された。

    Indirect passive sentences generally carry the meaning that the person indicated by the subject feels bothered or inconvenienced by being caught up in the situation. Therefore, the subject must be an animate being.

    * 私は,夜中に隣室の住人に騒がれて,なかなか寝つけなかった。

    ***TO BE CONTINUED.***

  5. Hello I would appreciate if someone help me understand this.

    So I’m watching takagi-san season 1 and in episode 11 there is this conversation:

    ユカリ: ねえ あんたらってさどういうタイプが好みとか ある？

    ミナ: 私は結構甘えてきてくれるほうが好きだな.

    What does 甘えてきてくれる means? I tried googling it and stumbled upon this [webpage](https://maggiesensei.com/2009/08/01/mini-listening-shopping-part-1/) and I still don’t understand it. It seems its a combination (or conjugation?) of 甘える + てくる + てくれる.

    甘えてくる means (someone) to act spoiled/ to be dependent towards the speaker (ミナ)

    then てくれる means to do something for someone (According to [Bunpro](https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B))

    So does 甘えてきてくれる means for someone to act spoiled/ to be dependent towards the speaker for the speaker’s benefit?

  6. Some background: It has been 8 months since I have seriously started going through anki, which I am currently at 1.4k mature words through a core2k deck. However, recently just seeing some mature cards come back for review I realize that I am struggling to differentiate similar kanji. I just remember the kanji for a couple of weeks then forget.

    So I would like to know if anybody knows if there a method or app that can help with differentiating similar kanji or if continuing SRS could fix it? Or will repeated immersion (and in turn constant look ups) fill this void? OR is it time to go through RTK?

    Feeling kind of lost, any advice on this matter would be appreciated.

  7. For general word order in a sentence like “I drank coffee with my friend on Tuesday”, would ともだちと come before or after 火曜日に ?

  9. I feel like this may be sort of a stupid question, though I am not sure if I felt the other threads answered it for me. I am very early-on in my Japanese studies and recently began studying Japanese verbs. I am finding it a bit difficult to study them, though, as I cannot fully retain the word when I see it. For nouns, having an image helps as I can associate it in real time if I were to see it or have to think about it. Yet, concepts like verbs are difficult. When I used images, I could only think of it with that image. If I do J->E I do not call it well as I do not have exposure to the language. Does anyone perhaps have tricks for remembering verbs? Should I make two cards for J->E and E->J though I feel that’ll double how much I am memorizing. Thank you for any advice!

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