LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (August 04, 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.

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11 comments

  1. Headline from NHK Easy:

    >秋田県で女性がけが　「熊に襲われたようだ」

    I just spent so long being confused and trying to figure out what がけ meant as a suffix or がけが as some new grammar point or *whatever* before I finally realized it’s just が (subject) けが (injury).

    Been a long time since I so genuinely real-life facepalmed.

  2. For those who are good at outputting Japanese: How did you learn to do so? Also, is it feasibly possible to reach a native level of output and become able to utilize things such as Literary Japanese? Despite my efforts, my output skills are not what I had hoped them to be, and I am beginning to wonder if my present woes presage my eternity

  3. Starting to read native materials for the first time. Currently have it set up with luna translator to show the Japanese and then the English translation. I read the Japanese first, then lookup whatever I do not know and then I read the English translation if I didn’t understand the sentence.

    I’m aware of how people say you should be okay with the ambiguity, so would you recommend this method or should I stop with the English translation and/or the lookups and just read the vn.

    I have around 2k vocab down and done 50 cure dolly videos + half the dictionary to japanese grammar beginner as an idea for my Japanese level.

  4. reading 回転ずし dialogue from quartet 1

    回転ずしの店では、一皿１００円から数百円という安い値段でずしが食べられる。

    confused with 一皿１００円から数百円という安い値段 . First time seeing 数百 and not sure what という does here. I understand this like this : In sushi go round stores, from 100 yen a plate, you can eat sushi with several hundred cheap prices?

  5. Does anyone know of any good Japanese podcasts to listen to in the car? For reference, I feel like I’m only at a beginner level, mostly just studying vocab through Anki (Kaishi 1.5k) for the last 3-4 months and occasionally reading up on grammar structure. From what I’ve read, people encourage getting in some immersion so you get more familiar with the language, however I found that I don’t have much time to just sit down and watch a show every day. However, I do have lots of time to listen while driving each day so I was hoping to find some recommendations for something to listen to, preferably something on Spotify since that’s pretty easy to set up on my car drives.

  8. Is it a common or polite practice to ask questions about other people’s actions in the passive?

    For instance, I’ve heard this in a couple interviews:
    どんなお仕事をされているんでしょうか？

    Why not どんな仕事をしている?

  10. Newer one here, I’ve been looking at wanikani for a bit now but it uses mnemonics. This wouldn’t be a problem for anyone else but for me they get stuck in my brain and I can’t ever get it out.
    Trust me I read one thing once and I can remember it like I just saw it.

    Is there a way to turn it off? Or something that doesn’t have it?

  11. Is it appropriate to use イケメン as a guy when talking about a male celebrity? Or does it sound creepy/weirdly homoerotic?

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