LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (February 26, 2026)

  • February 26, 2026

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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15 comments

  2. https://preview.redd.it/313t5r382rlg1.png?width=1589&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e79914eda3206d5c837a50b0309405f16548fdb

    Sharing a fun way to pick up some Japanese quickly, playing some live Japanese TV shows in PotPlayer and using realtime subtitles to translate them to Japanese, and then on top of that translating them to English for extra context. Trying to track what is being said to the subtitles helps a lot in learning I feel, especially since the speech is natural (and not forced like in shows/anime/etc) but the translations are not perfect unfortunately so still need to be aware

  3. Going through Genki 1 rn, how long should I be taking per lesson? I’ve just been reading through it and I understand it mostly since I did a little bit of reading before but I assume the later parts will need me to take more time to digest?

  4. I’ve searched all over but cannot find anything about this – does anyone know of an app that breaks down sentence structure?

    Basically I’m trying to play some Japanese games (mostly text based JRPGs from back in the day because I can take my time with the text) but they’re not on PC. I know things like Google Translate exist, but I would love to have an app where, if I type out the sentence, it gives me a break down of particles, conjugation and other key elements.

  5. Please excuse me if this is a really stupid question but how do I respond to onegaishimasu at the end of the conversation?
    My team lead asks me to work on a task and then she ends it with onegaishimasu and I have been making a complete fool of myself by responding onegaishimasu back to her.

    Now i just say はい or はい、ありがとうございます

    But it still feels wrong and I don’t know what to say.

    Every morning i end up wondering why I even try to speak the language when it’s just me writing up sentences and asking gpt if my sentence is natural.

  6. I am new to this sub

    I want to learn Japanese because , I really like manga and anime , plan to make my own and write stories . I also Japanese music and want to visit Japan. I am really interested to explore Japan more and the culture and think learning Japanese will help me

    1. What is the best way to learn or what are the pros and cons ?

    Options I have thought of is

    A. Learning free on YouTube

    B. Attending paid classes in person in my country
    (Singapore) at learning center with teachers

    C. Paid online class program with no teachers

    D. Paid online class program with teachers

    – Going to Japan to learn Japanese and able to travel and explore , and possibly work there afterward (is more of a bigger goal to plan because of costs and work)

    – I am leaning toward self learning online but with textbook as a start first . I prefer having a physical book / material to interact with )

    – However I’m concerned it will be too hard (I don’t think Duolingo works I tried for other languages it’s not really proper it’s just random words )

    – Or in person classes but it’s expensive and is lot of time after work . And I might not commit

    2. What do you guys reccomend ? For free classes , and if paid should I wait till I go Japan one day if ever or start now locally where I am?

    I have the same plan for Chinese I want to go China and learn Chinese to a better standard. Or I could do it now but I want an excuse to travel and learn 😅 I can speak and understand Chinese for everyday use and probably survive in China. I speak Chinese at home mixed with hokkien and English , which is why more difficult Chinese words ppl use in china or accents I won’t be able to understand.

    I’m Chinese Asian but can’t really read or write / is basic.

  7. Reading [this StackExchange](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18613/what-is-the-meaning-of-%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8B-and-how-does-it-differ-from-%E3%81%8B)

    >Another restriction I found is that you do not use this の when it does not make much sense to use your own mind to figure out the answer, for example
    >>お名前は何とおっしゃいますか (A teacher asks a student) 88と99を足すといくつになりますか (When taking the order) 何になさいますか

    I don’t get the explanation, wouldn’t you ‘use your mind’ to figure out a math problem?

  8. very helpful, thank you! new to the sub/reddit and i’ve been an avid anime fan and planning a tour to europe -> south east asia -> japan (at the end though in around 6-7 months in the fall/winter). I know somewhat a bit in my head as I watched a lot of anime growing up and really excited to be able to have basic conversations in Japanese when I’m there.

  10. ひとつ、またひとつと経験を積んでいけば、隠さんの不安は自然と解消されるはずだ。

    ただ、懸念点があるとすれば。

    隠さんはきっと、「そのうち」じゃなくて「いますぐ」結果を出したいと思っている。

    why is there a period after ただ、懸念点があるとすれば ?
    Isn’t the following sentence a continuation of it?

  11. Hello, I just installed google’s japanese ime and at first everything was fine until I tried typing something in japanese in a game on my computer. I switched to hiragana with the alt + caps lock hotkey but instead of romaji into hiragana it seems like my whole keyboard layout was swapped to japanese, typing hiragana straight up. This happened only in the game, after which I tried restarting my computer only for the problem to spread to everywhere. After installing microsoft’s ime and reinstalling google’s and also swapping my keyboard layout from the windows settings to japanese keyboard did it get fixed.

    After that I went again into the game and was typing fine with the english layout but after a switching again with the hotkey to romaji and back to hiragana the problem appeared again. Now it still persists in the game and also on notepad, but in google chrome the keyboard layout is normal. Has anyone had this problem before?

    Edit: I restarted my computer and now my keyboard layout for google’s japanese ime is switched everywhere, also forgot to mention that the alt + caps lock hotkey switches to halfwidth alphanumerical instead of katakana.

  12. Hi all! I’ve been learning Japanese and a pain point for me was getting used to writing it, which in practice these days means typing it. I wanted to be able to write to people in Japanese through apps like Tandem but I realised I sucked at using the 12 key flick keyboard. So I made an app which gamifies the process of using the keyboard so you can get nice and speedy, hopefully it’ll be useful to some others and if you had any feedback on it please drop me a DM! [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flickkana.trainer](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flickkana.trainer)

  13. As a Japanese, if you were to name a boy “Sora”, which kanji would you use/is more acceptable/less cringe? 空 or 天?

  14. Hi, hay, I’m writing my first manga and I need help with this sentence

    不可説の富の呪文

    is this written well? plese help

  15. 2 quick N5 level questions:

    – can someone please explain the difference in use among 組、クラス、授業？

    – am i right to interpret 後 as あと when it’s used as “after” and ご when it’s used as “later” in reference to times/events, or is there a different distinction? that’s just what i’ve noticed so far.

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