LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (November 12, 2025)

  • November 12, 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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9 comments

  1. (Can’t post because I have 0 karma so please bare with me but) does putting to kanji like (空)(emptiness) and (人)(person) make sense. can I just put multiple kanji in a “row” like can I say 妖人 (yō hito) or would 魔人 (mahjin) be the only way it grammarically makes sense(I just need answers and Google cant provide)

  2. Hi! I’m asking this question here because I don’t know much Japanese, but I’d like to create a character in the Rokugan role-playing game universe who has two first names:
    文美 (the old one) and 彩弥 (the new one).
    I’d like both to be read as “Ayami” (but with two different meanings). I’ve heard about nanori reading, which, from what I understand, allows two first names to be read the same way even if they don’t have the same kanji. But that’s where I’m having a little trouble understanding the reason.

    Please let me know if I’m completely wrong or not, haha. Thank you!

  3. I don’t normally post questions that stem primarily from my laziness but:

    Has anyone read Le Guin in translation? How does it read? did you enjoy it?

    Are there any writers you enjoyed influenced by Le Guin? Thinking mainly Earthsea but I am probably aware enough of her other works through cultural osmosis to at least get the vibe.

  5. Hey all, I’m learning basic vocab and I stumbled upon 次 with the kana as つぎ but I keep hearing the audio in both the anki deck i’m doing and jisho as “tsuni” instead of “tsugi”, I thought it would have a harder “g”, am I mishearing it?

  6. Hi, I’ve read some posts on here and watched youtube videos on kanji, but I still feel a tiny bit confused on it. I want to make sure I fully understand it.

    So I know each kanji can be read in multiple different ways and have different meanings.

    1. I’m assuming you know how to pronounce it and which meaning it has based on the context of the sentence?

    2. But do the onyomi and kunyomi have the same or different meanings, or does it just depend? I was looking at the n5 list on jlptsensei. Let’s use the “hito” kanji as an example (sorry for romaji, im on my computer and cant quickly/easily type kana); the website says the kunyomi is hito, the onyomi is jin/nin, but the only meaning is person. So it seems like both readings have the same meaning, is that always true? If so, is there anyway to know which pronunciation I should use when speaking?

    3. This is my main question. Does the meaning of a kanji change when it is combined with other kanji? I was looking at Tae Kim’s Japanese guide. Using one example, they have three kanji. The first one is listed with a definition of academic and reading gaku; the second one means ahead, precedence and reads sen; and the final one means life and reads sei. Then he puts them together and has gakusei read as student and sensei as teacher. But I wouldn’t say “Ahead life” could mean teacher, “Academic life” as student makes a bit more sense, but not much. So where do these meanings come from? Is it just something you need to memorize, the meanings of each kanji on its own but also its meaning when its combined with different kanji? Do the new meanings always have some relation to the meaning of the kanji on its own, or is it completely different sometimes?

  7. Hi all – I found this example sentence on JLPTsensei which confused me.

    これはあらゆる場面で必要になる。

    The site translates this to “This is important in every situation.”

    But it uses になる, so why don’t they translate it as “this will be” or say “必要です”?

  8. Currently reading grade Level 0 graded book. The problem is that I can’t use yomitan with it. So is there good JP-EN translator. Also What do you use for translator on android?

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