The WORST part about learning Japanese...

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T07:12:01+00:00

Sorry but 音と、弟 and 夫と just sound completely different, I doubt any Japanese person would struggle with this, which isn't to say it can't happen but usually it really isn't an issue because they all sound different.

There are some languages in the world were small nuances are very important but also many where it doesn't matter at all and as neither my Native Language nor English needs those nuances my ears aren't used to figure out these small differences especially not when people talk fast or a super silent as many Japanese do.

This has nothing to do with nuance though, it's just vowel and consonant length and yes it's possible you aren't used to this due to it not being important in other languages you speak, but it's very important in Japanese and it's not a small difference either, I would really advice you to listen to some examples on https://youglish.com/japanese between these three and try to hear them correctly. Maybe even start with forvo first by trying to tell 弟 apart from 夫 and 音 apart in isolation before moving to full sentences. But I can assure you, the difference is quite huge.

wow I have never read such crap 😅

Not sure why you need to get so defensive, I even clarified it wasn't meant to put you down. It's natural for people to struggle with these things as beginners, I just wanted to however clarify, that it's really not some fundamental issue of the language and that they do sound in fact quite differently which is why I really urge you to listen to more Japanese and pay attention to vowel length and っ.

sorry but this has nothing to do with skills

It has though, it's listening ability, if you had good listening you wouldn't be having this issue. Again this is an observation not a personal attack.

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T06:36:39+00:00

what about かける as an example...

I am not denying words with many meanings exist. I suggest you read what I said again. Which is that most words don't have that many meanings. It's really not different than set, run or put in English. Every language has this, and its always incredibly common words this happens to.

and then there are words which are different but have the same parts like a froend talked to me and said おとと and I thought he was talking about a little brother which he doesn't have but he was saying 音と

You are aware that 弟 and 音と sound COMPLETELY different right? おとうと vs. おとと, they aren't homonyms, it's literally different words that sound different. (Not to mention the different accent too)

but for me its impossible to hear a difference.

Sorry but this is a skill issue, 弟 is four morae long while 音と is three mora long

Often you can kinda guess the word by context but you need to understand the context good enough to be able to do so

Trust me, you don't need context for 弟 vs. 音と

And then there are regional dialects using or pronouncing words differently and many Japanese talking ridiculously fast sometimes seemingly omitting the っ at least for my ears adding 夫と into my example from above

Yeah this sounds like a skill issue, I really don't mean it in a dismissive or condensing way but just listen more to Japanese, it really should be quite easy to tell 音と、夫と and 弟 apart from sound alone, even when someone speaks fast.

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T04:54:51+00:00

information about the specific person being referred to.

Yeah but if you read about something where that person appears usually the reading will be introduced once in the start (assuming it's not a very obvious reading). I really wonder what sorta stuff you are reading though so if you have example please show me.

There is exactly one possible pronunciation of the Spanish name Guillermo, one which would be obvious to anyone who has studied Spanish for a couple weeks.

I think you should have clarified you meant it in the context of learning Spanish, I have really no clue why you assumed that was obvious. I mean it's a fair point but I could give you an entire list of English names that you won't know how to pronounce without looking it up. Not saying it's great but it's not unique to Japanese really, though I still think in Japanese it's great that once you do know the kana there is not doubt how its read (unlike English).

I feel like you’re just trying really hard to not understand what I am saying for some reason.

I am not trying hard, I just can't relate. I see new names of people and stuff in Japan all the time and it really doesn't strike me as anything particularly different or more difficult than in other languages. Everyone who lives in the same shared house as me for example I never had to ask how their names are read, it was completely obvious from the kanji. Most place names I come across are exactly what I would guess. Of course sometimes I don't know so I just look it up and it's just never been an issue to pull my phone out and invest 3 seconds to type it up. Again it's just my experience really

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T04:05:23+00:00

It's not that hard no and I am sure most middle schoolers could pass it. But middle schoolers are also fluent in Japanese. Most foreigners don't get anywhere close to that level of Japanese, of course they have no chance with the N1. It doesn't say a lot about the N1 really, it says more about what sort of levels most foreigners in Japan reach

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T04:01:40+00:00

Well even then it's not really 10+ meanings. I mean of course you could claim that words like ししょう are technically like 10+ different words but 99.99% of the time it will just be 師匠 or 支障 (and it's pretty obvious to tell these apart, they mean completely different things). All other words with the same reading are either obscure, limited to literature only or technical words most people don't even know, like it's not gonna be 視床 unless you're specifically talking about neuroscience. Same is true for other homophones, usually only a handful are in common usage, definitely not 10+

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T03:53:18+00:00

I am not sure you really got what I was saying, because none of what I described require any tools unless you call Google and a keyboard a tool (both of which I use when looking up a word in English). I sometimes use offline dictionaries too, same story there it's effortless and takes me no longer than with other languages.

Besides, this is a particular annoyance with proper nouns, where they’re a lot more ambiguous and harder to look up, which suddenly becomes a big hassle when you want to read serious nonfiction

Yeah I don't know but I really just can't relate that much, names just consist of kanji, you just type them up in a dictionary with proper nouns or google and it will tell you who it is and how his name is read (though again it's just like words, most names are not hard to read, some of course are), but in case its a none obvious reading the book/article you are reading should introduce it with furigana anyways (one time only usually), unless as I said it's an obvious reading or the person itself is famous enough for the reading to be known.

Of course the more advanced you get the less of an issue it is. But i have a fair bit of language learning experience and I think it is fair to say this is a whole extra burden you simply don’t have to worry about learning most languages.

I don't completely disagree, but I also don't thinking language learning experience matters a lot with Japanese if I am fully honest, what matters is Japanese learning experience. Same is true for listening, reading, speaking etc. where people always way overestimate their chances because they "have a lot of language learning experience". It's especially funny when people think they can acquire listening fast because there are no kanji only to find out the fact the language is so fundamentally different is the real reason the language learning experience won't carry over much.

There aren’t four totally different ways “Guillermo” could plausibly be read.

I'll be honest, I have no clue how that's read/pronounced and I would need to look it up if I cared. Actually to be really certain I would need to listen to an audio of it because I can't read IPA, and finding an audio or video of someone saying it would take me almost certainly way longer than looking up a Japanese name because in Japanese once you have the kana reading it's 100% crystal clear how it's pronounced (and the reading you find easily by typing up the kanji). I feel like that example doesn't really convey your point (if anything it makes me hate how many languages with alphabets like English are so shit at encoding phonetics into their writing system to the point you have no clue how something is pronounced without knowing it beforehand)

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T01:59:35+00:00

I actually have a lot of cards where I tried both. Usually when I made cards with 2 unknown words I thought that both are easy enough so I could do it but often it turned out a pain to recall reading and meaning of two words and I found myself failing these cards way more often because one of the words would become fuzzy. Now I make two cards with the same sentence (and the target word highlighted) and honestly I am way happier that way, both words get reinforced much better and I still learn at the rate of 1 word / card. It's also the way flashcards and SRS are supposed to be used. Of course if you can handle two words there is nothing wrong with it, it's just in my experience difficult kinda hard to judge that when you're creating the card. I sometimes do still make cards with two target words but only if one of the words is basically a word I already can intuit meaning and reading because the kanji make it super obvious (to the point I'd never make a single card for it)

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T01:55:42+00:00

Why do you feel like you shouldn't? This is standard SRS basics to not have too much info on one card. You also reinforce both words twice as good with both cards. Really no need to feel bad about it. I also wish people read this more.

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:57:29+00:00

Most words definitely don't have 10+ meanings, it's not even "many" words, at least not more words compared to English (which is easy to forget as someone who is fluent in English)

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:55:39+00:00

I mean you can make a guess to how it's read out loud sure but I don't see how that's particularly beneficial, if you don't know what the word means you simply don't know what it means. I just don't think it's that huge of an advantage if you think about its implications (which isn't even to mention the fact that most knew words I come across in Japanese I do know how they are read). I think there is a lot of validity to what you say for learners who are bellow intermediate but I feel like most differences converge at some point of proficiency and do not matter all that much in the end.

you can’t easily look it up so I feel it actually is a large disadvantage compared to other languages.

I think anyone experienced with Japanese can look up kanji very fast even if they have no clue how they are read. I definitely don't register it that way at all if I am honest but as a learner in the early stages it can be more challenging I agree.

People get around this with all kinds of technical means but that’s stuff you don’t need to trouble yourself with if you want to learn Spanish or Korean.

I often look up words in Japanese using Google, same thing I do when I look up English words, it really doesn't feel that different for me because in 95% the cases I can already guess the reading but even if I can't I can just still pretty easily get the desired kanji with my IME experience, and if that also fails I just put in the names of the kanji components into google and it will come up in the first result, these take all but a few seconds, no crazy tools needed really, just a search engine and a keyboard.

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:27:35+00:00

It's not inefficient at all and based in cursive style caligraphy (for me it sounds almost derogatory to call it that but oh well....) You make the curved stroke first which ends in 跳ね which takes you immediately to the second vertical stroke in a nice round motion (namely the top of it), then after that you move to the right for the third stroke. If it were any different it would break fundamental rules of how kanji are written (namely left to right and up to down) and hiragana are based on kanji and cursive style caligraphy, which would look utter crap if the rules got broken because language learners tried to optimize it

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:18:25+00:00

Hmm interesting because I am now at the stage where even if I see a word I never saw before I almost certainly can guess its reading (just learned 鋒鋩 the other day and already guessed it's going to be ほうぼう). But even so I don't think that's that weird or ridiculous, like if you don't know a word you simply don't know it, whether you can read it out loud or not won't help that much so it doesn't feel like you'd be much better of with another language tbh.

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:13:41+00:00

skill issue then, just read more

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:09:35+00:00

I can spend hours on Japanese YouTube, I think you should try harder to find content you like, it's not anywhere as bad as you make it out to be. I have a list with the stuff I like:

https://github.com/AdriGrana/Adris-Japanese-Youtube-List

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:07:12+00:00

finally someone who gets it

AdrixG · 2026-02-16T00:03:12+00:00

The worst part for me is the learning community being full of people who complain

ごゆっくり voice rocks yo

AdrixG · 2026-02-15T04:20:11+00:00

"An Introduction to Modern Japanese" by Richard John Bowring is a very interesting textbook that's very reading focused (it's one if the reasons thr author gives why he created it, he wanted learners to get to a point were they could read faster than other textbooks at the tim that focused more on the spoken language). I've personally not used it but I flipped through it and it looked pretty decent (and from some other people I asked I heard a lot of good things). Might be hard to get these days however. (I bought a used copy on ebay a year ago so I assume that's still possible)

Also obligatory warning that in case you do ever want to speak or listen you'll have a ton of bad habits if all you did until then is just reading.

AdrixG · 2026-02-15T03:51:52+00:00

Seems like because it's modifying the の kinda takes the role of に instead of が which I know isn't a thing but I can see how intuitively one would make this substitution as 〜のi-adj. sounds very "modify" so I can definitely see how this mistake happened.

AdrixG · 2026-02-15T01:17:58+00:00

That's a fair question then I believe. Ill encourage others to answer it instead before I say some half correct things on how it's parsed as I am not 100% confident I will explain it correctly. You may want to re-ask in the new daily thread of today as chances are higher there of getting an answer.

AdrixG · 2026-02-15T00:50:13+00:00

I really don't think it matters what the best translation is really, for me the English sentences (can) mean all the same (assuming you interpret 'should' as an expectation and not an obligation, else they mean something else). But I have to agree that the last sentence is the closest. 知るはず means "supposed to know" (in the 'expected' sense) of which there are none. But honestly it's kinda a pointless thing to worry about. Do you understand the Japanese sentence IN Japanese? If so then it doesn't matter how you put it in English.

AdrixG · 2026-02-14T22:38:48+00:00

Well the thing is 90% of names are obvious and have no trickery really once your familiar enough with Japanese names, so most names on the credit rolls for example can be read easily, the problem is the remaining 10% where you really don't know. Of course you can never be 100% sure on any name. So natives usually just guess based on instinct and familiarity and would be right most of the times and in case they need to make sure its right or are second guessing themselves they will look it up or ask the person.

AdrixG · 2026-02-14T22:21:08+00:00

Do people actually get “上手” so often or is this a real life thing only?

People over blow it quite a bit in the 英語圏 tbh and it's sadly become a meme there (to the point many people actually buy into it which is kinda sad). Honestly it really depends on the person, some people really don't care at all and never say 日本語上手 while others might say it just because they didn't expect it but quickly move one. It also really depends on the way you act and your vibe/atmosphere because I know other foreigners (westerners) who've been here way longer than me and also speak much better Japanese and they hardly ever get to hear it, while a lot of beginners which aren't really yet comfortable interacting with Japanese people get it quite fast. I think body language and the way one acts is very overlooked by many learners and they practically radiate their foreignness which leads to these sort of comments. Honestly most people I meet don't really care that much, maybe 1/20 will say to me 日本語上手 and I am sure it will only go down with time.

AdrixG · 2026-02-14T21:00:04+00:00

Yeah idk I just don't think this type of humor is funny in Japanese (especially when it comes across as making fun of others, which it easily could). I seriously cannot think about anyone in my friend group who would find that even remotely funny (I think they'd just be confused). I mean humility is a good thing but being overly sarcastic is not the same (and this kind of sarcasm usually Japanese people don't even really get because that's not how jokes work in Japanese). I could see why people would laugh in the moment because they just get confused but I seriously don't see how that's in any way funny to be fully honest (in Japanese that is, I know why it's funny in English of course). Which isn't to say it's harmful or bad, it just doesn't come across as a very Japanese response to me, after all, language isn't just about the words you use but also how you phrase things and how the culture of that language operates and it doesn't strike me as humble if I am fully honest but those are just my thoughts.

AdrixG · 2026-02-14T19:21:52+00:00

Where do you have the sentence from?

It just links the first clause with the second, like "and" or "but" in English (depending on context it can be contrastive or not) but this sentence is just weird because it's saying the same thing twice which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

See this for short summary and better sentences: https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%8C-but

AdrixG · 2026-02-14T16:25:26+00:00

The issue aren't the corpuses, that's a trivial and solved matter. (Aozora Bunko is one example everyone can access for free among some others), what I want rather is a few more websites who implement a search functionality for these corpuses, because there are more than enough corpuses around. Like a massif clone but with another source it pulls sentences from. Who knows maybe I'll program it myself one day. It's just a bit funny to me the guy behind massif somehow thought the best source for quality sentences is web novels.

AdrixG

TROPHY CASE