LLearn Japanese

Daily Thread: for simple questions, minor posts & newcomers [contains useful links!] (October 19, 2025)

  • October 19, 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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16 comments

  1. Interesting anecdote to share. I started to notice recently (as in the last few weeks) that kanji in small fonts in physical books were getting _juuust_ a little fuzzier and harder to read than I was used to. I hadn’t noticed the same problem with English or on screens. Well, I mentioned this slight trouble reading up close to my optometrist today, and it turns out that, yes, I am starting to get presbyopia, which is normal for my age.

    I’m sure that, given my age, the optometrist would have tested anyway, but thought it was interesting that Japanese was the early warning sign.

  2. when learning with wanikani, is it best to do the kanji of L1, then voc of L1. Then kanji L2, voc L2 etc. Or do a bunch of kanji first, then do the vocs?

    Also is it really important to learn the radicals right away? I know they will be really important later on but with the current kanji I’m at I don’t feel like they’re that important.

  3. 「そんな、あっさり……」This sentence doesn’t has clear verb or object and subject ??? Need native help seriously to understand correctly this dialogue’s meaning ! I met this in a fighting game after i finish the battle gameplay, the game switch to story mode.

    Main character and his allyX are talking with a leader of a powerful clan Yさま, then that leader’s subordinate general Z came to report. They noticed that this general just got an eyepatch on the left eye, but this general seems to don’t care about such a serious wound, acting nonchalantly.

    >X「……Z、どうしたのだ！ その目は」

    >あまりに普段通り過ぎて気付かなかったけど、よく見たら、Zの片目には大きな眼帯が当てられていた。

    >Z「Yさまの命を果たす途中で、ちと流れ矢に当たってな。まあ、かすり傷だ」

    >X「いや……明らかにかすり傷ではないだろう。目はまた見えるようになるのか」

    >Z「無理だろうな」

    >Main character「そんな、あっさり……」( No, easily…. ???)

    >Z「だが、Yさまがこの眼帯を下さってな。どうだ、よく似合うだろう？」
    片目が見えないと、距離感が掴めなくなるから……武人にとっては結構なハンデなんじゃないか？

  5. Is there any site that explains how kanji’s radicals may help with figuring out the meaning? Such as how kanji with heart radical relate to emotions etc (at at least that’s how i’ve seen it exaplaned somewhere some time ago) 

  6. Hi, how can I politely ask if the coffee will be served in a mug or in a plastic cup? I’ll be travelling to Japan in a week, I’m around N4 level but I’m finding this difficult, thanks in advance!

  7. should you learn the reading together with the vocab? or start with the meanings only.

  8. Anyone have recommendations for Japanese cooking channels with Japanese subtitles, except NOT hardcoded into the video? I’m trying to extract it to LingQ for learning purposes, but if the subtitles aren’t uploaded onto YouTube separately the translations aren’t reliable.

    I’m actually struggling to find some. Seems like many have subtitles but they’re all hardcoded into the videos.

  9. Hi, I recently have started learning Japanese a couple of months ago, is there a more challenging way you would recommend to learn japanese than duolingo or a way to learn conversations? The monotony and repatition is nice for duolingo, but I want to start learning conversations and I don’t think duo lingo is good for that.

  10. Hello. I wanted to know how people learned kanji through vocab decks like Kaishi or JLPT Tango. Do you just learn the word as a single unit made up of the kanji characters, or do you learn the word and make new flashcards for each new kanji you come across? If it’s the latter, would it not get overwhelming really quickly? Or is there a filtering criteria for the latter which reduces the load? I’m interested in starting a vocab deck so I wanted to know how to approach this correctly

  14. I wonder if there’s some sort of website like VNDB? except for more obscure japanese-only media? I find the tagging on that site pretty useful to find games.

    But would also be nice to find some site for other media too, like manga or shows.

    Cause otherwise you’ve gotta be lucky to find a game in the wild, and then go onto THAT site (which may or may not even exist anymore lol)

    Or if you are just looking for something specific, I find vndb to be a pretty nice site but the site is pretty limited, it’s mostly english and then some JP-only content.

  15. do people have any recommended language learning apps that have well crafted Japanese grammar courses? Duolingo is a bit slow, and I primarily want to improve my speaking. Before trying language apps that allow you to book time with a native speaker or tutor, I wanted to see if people had any feedback on AI apps like Praktika and jumpspeak? Been receiving a lot of advertisements from them, and I think AI apps could be a good low barrier of entry to starting actual conversations. curious for thoughts or recommendations!

  16. (venting a little bit, sorry)
    I’m absolutely fed up with reviewing RTK in Anki. I’m 1382 kanji in so far, and it took me about 11 months to do it. I didn’t learn much new kanji lately because of work so it became a drag and really boring.

    I’m also 60% through JLAB deck. That I find somewhat fun and interesting. I like its ability to show me words with kanji I know and the rest in kana. Since I have ADHD etc I am unable to follow books, so this deck is making me familiar with the language, and I’m looking forward to engaging with native content, reading manga, sentence mining etc.

    Any words of advice/caution?

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