LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (September 28, 2025)

  • September 28, 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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Past Threads

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13 comments

  2. what are these specific characters that I cannot understand at all, usually in katakana??

    Examples:

    -ェ

    -ゥ

    -ゔ

    -ァ (like in ファ)??

    I am absolutely puzzled seeing ones like these and do I have to learn them or not?? (At katakana rn)

  3. So I started using Duolingo to learn Japanese since my family and I were planning to take a trip to Tokyo this year to visit my brother while he was doing a co-op abroad. But I had to drop it because I realized that the Japanese course on Duolingo sucked. It was hard to understand the characters when they spoke, the speaking challenges were impossible, and they never really explained the hiragana or how it worked. Today they finally forced me to switch to the stupid energy system. That was the last straw for me and I’ve requested for my account to be deleted.

    But I want to try again learning Japanese. I like watching anime and it’d be nice to be able to watch without needing subtitles or dubs.

    So is what are some good alternatives I can use so I can learn Japanese?

  4. >お願いがあるのです。実は、沙都子の危機を救ってあげてほしいのです。

    Why is this を救う and not から救う? I thought the object was the thing *to be* saved? I did look at one Japanese dictionary and the examples where what I would expect (人を救う、国を救う、 etc etc）

  5. Best Japanese books on writing and drawing manga? Preferably ones that goes in depth on different types of panels including regular and irregular types, gutter usage, and objective vs subjective motion lines.

  10. What is the staff at UNIQLO japanese stores constantly saying?

    The phrase is not long, always in the same intonation, I get the sense that it’s something like “I’m here if you need anything” or “ask if you need help” but I can only understand the 下さい at the end.

  11. Restarting WaniKani? How do y’all study WaniKani?

    I have been doing WaniKani for maybe 2 years now, and I always write down the radicals, readings, meanings and such of the radicals, kanji and vocab, and I was honest with myself and tried to remember everything by memory. At a certain point I started cheating though and would just look up the meaning and definition most of the time (still working off memory if I was sure I knew it) and did that to move up the levels, thinking Hey I pay for it I should be able to use it how I want. I’m level 30 now, and feel like I would benefit more if I took my time and studied everything a bit more in depth. is it worth it to reset to the beginning? How do y’all go about using WaniKani?

  12. Brand new to Japanese, I plan on visiting Japan for about 10 days at the end of February. I want to learn more but have read that the best way is to learn how to listen before learning how to read (which seems more conducive for a visit like this). But most learning material I can find is designed to have you learn to read kana before anything. Can anyone recommend some good resources, online courses, apps etc for leaning to listen first? I plan on doing a little of learning kana at the same time, but don’t want to have to wait on that before learning to listen or speak at all.

  13. is there another way to say delicious except おいしい or うまい to express like “this dish is exquisite” “… has delicate flavors”?? or do we just stuck by just adding “とてもおいしい or めっちゃうま！” etc? 

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