Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (April 16, 2025)

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

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18 comments
  1. (I did post this on yesterday thread not to long ago but figured id put it here too)
    i just started learning and im having trouble with my name as while simple to write in katakana it means something entirely different. my name is Kora (written コラ)and its not short for anything so im a bit stumped on what to do.

  2. Just wanted to double-check something! I came across this sentence in an NHK article, (regarding the 教師採用試験) and I was a bit confused at first because it wasn’t automatically clear that this is the quoting と, rather than conditional (although I’m not exactly sure how that would work here?). Here’s the quote:

    >これまで試験日程を早めても、うまくいかなかった自治体や混乱が生じた自治体があり、効果がない**と**判断したところが多いのではないか

    If I understand the sentence correctly, they’re basically saying, “Despite expediting the testing schedule, there are jurisdictions where (the testing) didn’t go well and confusion arose; it seems that there have been many judgements made that (the changes) weren’t effective.”

    But if someone could confirm my interpretation, and that this is indeed the quoting と (meaning that the phrase is 結果がないと判断した “it was determined that there was no effect), that’d be great!

  3. [meta] What are your thoughts on those who post questions which got a sizeable amount of attention and then deleting the post after getting their answers? Eg. I took the time to craft out my answer for [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1jvssvi/what_is_the_difference_between_something_like/) last week hoping that it would help those who would search for the same thing in the future, but the post just got deleted so now it’s impossible to search for this post. Apologies in advance if this is not the right place to ask.

  4. Mini rant: classroom teachers, I see beginners write/copy *unspaced kana*, can I encourage you to teach Japanese with spaces instead? It’s a real thing (分かち書き) and here’s why:

    * retro (or old) video games use spaced kana more often than unspaced kana
    * spacing is very common in books for young readers
    * spoken Japanese has intonation, that intonation divides speech into chunks, and spaces are placed similarly. It’s still a decent stepping stone towards listening comprehension
    * unspaced is a big cognitive load, especially when there are mistakes or unknown vocabulary or the student just isn’t very good yet. I’d rather read [WagaNeko in historic orthography](https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000148/files/790.html) than a run of kana that’s longer than a billboard – am I the only one?
    * [it’s not just me saying this](https://www.pref.shizuoka.jp/_res/projects/default_project/_page_/001/015/583/2rule_1.pdf) (small pdf) ([full](https://www.fdma.go.jp/singi_kento/kento/items/kento207_20_sankou5-6.pdf)), it’s proposed for public safety and accessibility

    Spaces should, of course, be removed once there’s a reasonable amount of kanji present. And I wouldn’t get too picky grading where spaces are added – there’s a somewhat standardized practice (see pdf) but it’s not *official*-official.

    Reading unspaced text is a skill that can be developed, and I’m sure that most native speakers have very little difficulty, but it probably shouldn’t be a priority for students who aren’t even reading at an elementary-school level yet.

    Thanks for considering this.

  5. https://imgur.com/a/Q2mVwrh

    Not sure about ふんばり in 揺れる船上でシュートするためのふんばり. Something like “support” (any better word?)? Just like how training wheels provide “support” for riding a bicycle?

  6. anyone wanna beta test a new conjugation practice mobile app on iphone? you just need to have testflight installed and send me an email address in DMs, you’ll receive an email by apple with the code for testflight.

  7. This is probably a very silly question and I am sorry if I overlooked my answer somewhere in the resources but are there any apps/sites that are particularly good with the actual speech part of the language?

    I’ve been using Renshuu and I’m enjoying it. I’m learning a lot about the written language and grammar structure but I know that when I’m trying to say sentences out loud I’m tripping up and not always knowing exactly where. Are there any apps that have a little more feedback wrt pronunciation? I know that Duolingo had something like that where you had to answer some speech questions but also that that app is garbage when it comes to Japanese. Any recs?

  8. I’m playing through a game in Japanese and when I open a chest one of the characters says something that sounds like “いいのこのこ” and “これはのこのこ” (there’s no subtitle for this so I’m going purly off audio). When I try and look it up I can’t find anything regarding the “のこのこ” part and I’ve asked somebody who speaks Japanese as a second language (Japanese parent) and they didn’t know either. I’m wondering if anyone here could explain what it could mean. It’s only been ssaid so far when opening chests and it’s said every time alternating between the two phrases.

  9. 限界値

    How do you read that? Searched on jisho, no results. Yomikata says 「げんかいち」。Is that correct?

  10. I came here to a big rant about the lack of furigana in an anki shared deck, and then I touched some configuration and now I have furigana in that shared deck. I’m so happy right now. Sending good vibes to all Japanese learners! We can do this 😀

  11. I need to write a letter to a Japanese artist and wanted to know if anyone wanted to get some practice in and help me out.

    I found their work at an art gallery in February and was moved by it. I checked out their online website and saw a piece I wanted, but I needed to think about this as it was priced at 77,000 yen. I decided to pull the trigger when the artist put their webshop under maintenance, and its been that way for about a month. So I just need to email them and work out a deal.

    Any takers?

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