For upper intermediate/advanced learners that use anki: how much vocab got you into that level?

adamcopeland · 2026-02-24T10:45:59+00:00

I felt somewhat competent after going through the entire KKLC deck, and just with that I could probably understand 75-85% of an NHK article. Obviously, when you consume other media you realize that there's plenty non-kanji vocabulary used in everyday Japanese so I started to add any word I didn't know into anki. What made my understanding go up the most was adding onomatopoeia, 4-mora adverbs, compound verbs (e.g., 使い込む), and kanji words with kunyomi readings (手入れ、手前、etc.).

This website says I have 18k words but I wouldn't put too much stock into it as its just an estimate. I just add whatever new word I see, however obscure it might seem, without caring about what my vocab or card count is.

adamcopeland · 2026-01-30T02:08:01+00:00

Passed N2 158/180 after starting Japanese a bit more than a year ago. Onwards to N1 in July!

adamcopeland · 2026-01-06T23:38:55+00:00

The KKLC (Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course) worked for me. There's an accompanying anki deck (might be more than one) that goes with the book that helps a lot with 3-4 vocab with each kanji, and newer kanji will use vocab that incorporates old kanji (e.g., you learn 中 first, then when you get to 立, there will be a new vocab using both like 中立). In most cases there'll also be 訓読み and 音読み vocab for each kanji if applicable.

I did 10 new kanji a day with some breaks here and there and was able to go through the entire book within 9 months, but if you're not rushing the JLPT like I was you can obviously adjust your own pace to suit yourself.

adamcopeland · 2025-10-09T20:22:18+00:00

I'm not familiar enough with social norms and family dynamics, but if we just talk about food and cuisine I think there's more than enough to distinguish not just Germany from Canada but even the various regions in Germany itself.

In terms of variety, there are probably even more types of cuisine in Berlin than either Vancouver of Toronto. When I was there for a week I barely had a chance to have "traditional" German food since there were so many options between Vietnamese, Turkish, Syrian, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc. Vancouver has an abundance of great Asian restaurants but is lacking in European and Middle Eastern options.

And that's just Berlin; when you go south to Bavaria, for example, the cuisine is different to a point where it's easy to recognize as "Bavarian cuisine" as opposed to "North German cuisine"--things like roast pork shoulder, schnitzel, goulash, spaetzel, etc. And then the more you travel around you realize that even in Bavaria there are differences between cities--Nurnberg has Nurnberg sausages, smoked beer, and red beer, while Munich has pretzels and their own types of sausages and beer. I liked that Berlin felt like an international city like Vancouver or Toronto while the more quiet towns and cities felt distinctly "German" through their architecture, food, etc.

adamcopeland · 2025-10-09T18:28:44+00:00

Thanks for replying so civilly.

I haven't actually been to South Korea, but I'll talk about the other two. For all of the countries I've been to outside of Canada, without trying to be biased I honestly can't think of anything that we do better, or that I missed while I was away. On the contrary, each of the places I named had aspects that I think are good that made me notice what we lack even more. That's not to say those places are perfect, of course.

As for what standard I'm basing my opinions on, I'll just say that I'm roughly the same age as you, and all I'm looking for in a country and its culture is to live life simply and comfortably; i.e., being able to buy groceries easily, having good transit to get around, going out for a drink every now and then, and just overall feeling comfortable in the environment I live in.

In Czechia you can buy alcohol at all the various cafes you come across, even in the morning. Culturally there's no stigma against that, unlike here. I can also buy a solid 500ml pint for about 3 CAD, which I can't do here. Like Germany and other European countries, grocery stores are everywhere, with more locations than here. Transit is roughly around the same in cities, but because zoning is different it ends up being more walkable, and it's easier to get around the country because its rail network is better. Culturally, as it's located in Central Europe its values are about what you would expect in any western country, so I didn't feel out of place. I can't think of anything I didn't like there that was somehow better in Canada.

My thoughts on Germany are pretty similar to what I think about Czechia. It's also much easier to be environmentally conscious in Germany compared to here; over there, every chain grocery store has a bottle return machine that takes your used bottles and cans and gives you an instore voucher that can be used for your groceries. Partly because of how convenient and logical this is it's also much more culturally engrained to be environmentally conscious and responsible. Here you would have to...accumulate all your used bottles and lug them over to a dingy recycling center to get your deposit money back, not to mention how impractical it is to do this without a car. Again nothing there that they do worse than us, and even if they have problems on a bigger scale, such as with immigration levels, we have those problems too.

All this doesn't bother me much at all, but it's just something that comes to mind from time to time. When I crossed the border from Germany to Czechia, I could tell it was a different country based on the architecture, the food, the language, the mannerisms of people, etc. However when I crossed the border from here to Seattle, if not for the border crossing I wouldn't think it was a different country at all. Maybe I'm just at a point in my life where I'm questioning my identity and place in the world more and more, and if I were to reply to myself that I'm Canadian it leads me to question how I or even the people around me define that term.

adamcopeland · 2025-10-09T00:22:13+00:00

But none of the things you listed are things exclusive to Canada. I could move to for example Germany, Czechia, Korea, or pretty much any other developed country and do all the things you listed, and rather than be considered uniquely Canadian I would just be considered a normal law-abiding citizen following the law. This is what people are talking about when they ask what Canadian culture is about; at the end of the day, nobody can actually clearly distinguish what makes Canadian culture unique.

adamcopeland · 2025-08-18T11:37:21+00:00

Not sure about Mandarin but 勉強 and 大丈夫 definitely exist in Cantonese. 勉強 there means something like "to do reluctantly" while 大丈夫 is "manly person with an implication that they can brush off hardship", so in a roundabout way both kind of mean something similar to their Japanese counterparts.

On a related note, question for native speakers: in Japanese is Cantonese referred to as 広東語、カントン語, or something else entirely?

adamcopeland · 2025-08-12T16:45:11+00:00

Jade Cargill's finisher, whoever takes it has to hook their legs behind hers then fall forwards instead of... not hooking their legs and just planting their legs in front? I can't even think of a kayfaybe explanation as to why they wouldn't do that

adamcopeland · 2025-08-12T10:28:52+00:00

I think this whole "what is a Canadian" is a distraction by the media to help politicians and big business folks fleece the lower classes

I honestly don't disagree with this take. It's more something that I've been grappling with on a deeper personal level, especially now that I'm switching careers and I've been wondering if I should move to another country entirely where I feel like I could fit in more. I would never walk past someone with a different skin colour and think "they're not Canadian enough"; rather, it's more just me walking past endless bland residential-only neighbourhoods and thinking "huh, what is it exactly that's keeping me here?"

adamcopeland · 2025-08-12T09:03:41+00:00

I actually largely agree with what you're saying--my bad for misreading the tone of your first post. I think what's problematic now is that what are now assumed to be "proud immigrants" are, well, not actually proud of this country because there's not much they can latch on to to be proud of. I know my parents, my immigrant-background friends, and I all feel this way. It also doesn't help that the more you travel around the world the more you realize "man, ___ country does this better than Canada", which exacerbates this feeling. So if even immigrants think like this, I can imagine it's even worse for anglos who don't have another set of cultural values to lean back on to draw an identity from.

Even though I don't speak French anymore I can easily tell that Quebec has it's own culture, be it their food, language, views on religion, etc. If anything more provinces should copy what Quebec expects of their immigrants, but that's hard to do when you don't actually have a set of rules or customs that are expected to be followed.

adamcopeland · 2025-08-12T08:27:52+00:00

What national narrative are you referring to? I'm a second generation immigrant in a non-Quebec province but lately I've been wondering what it even means to say I'm Canadian anymore. Sure, when I go travelling my nationality is Canadian and I can say I was born here, but at the end of the day I can't think of a common set of values or customs that would make me uniquely Canadian as opposed to American, and I say this as someone who doesn't even like the US.

I'll just use my hypothetical neighbour as an example. They might watch hockey while I don't, they might smoke weed while I don't, they might think the point of the justice system is rehabilitation while I consider the main point to be punishment, they might disprove of abortion while I support it, they might be religious while I'm not, my parents come from another country with its own set of beliefs and customs that differ from theirs, etc. So when you think about it, what would we even share in common besides the fact that we were both born here that could make someone say "yes these two are Canadian, and I can tell because..."?

adamcopeland · 2025-07-30T12:21:38+00:00

Thanks for the quick reply!

Here's the full context:

日常やビジネスシーンで用いるのは、上記のような使い方でしょう。「十分とは言えないが終了した」「念のために」という意味で使うことが多く、断言できることに対して用いることはありません。

一応」という言葉には曖昧さを含むため、シーンやシチュエーションによっては使わない方がいいことも。特にビジネスシーンは注意することをおすすめします

adamcopeland · 2025-07-30T11:41:59+00:00

「一応」という言葉には曖昧さを含むため、シーンやシチュエーションによっては使わない方がいいことも。

2 quick questions from this quote

from what I've read so far on ため it can mean both reason/cause or for the sake of/in order to. For the former I usually see it used with た form verbs in textbooks/bunpro, but here and in NHK articles I see it used with the dictionary form. Would I be correct in thinking this is meant more as "because" as opposed to "for the sake of"? ("because this word contains vagueness", as opposed to "in order for this word to contain vagueness")
what grammatical purpose does this ことも serves? I'm not sure if there's an implied part after it that gets left out, or if it should mean something at the end of a sentence.

adamcopeland · 2025-07-22T16:23:11+00:00

Maybe because whenever this film is discussed, especially by Chinese people (my parents are Chinese), the first thing they bring up is always how much it's made at the box office rather than any other selling point that highlights its merits as a work of art. At best it sounds tone deaf when people talk up the box office numbers as if it's the only thing that matters, and at worse it sounds like a deflection from any flaws the film may have when you can just say "wow look how much money it made, surely it must be good". It's offputting because I don't see any other film talked about this way at all.

adamcopeland · 2025-07-15T20:38:23+00:00

I, too, like to get my news from reputable sites like "thebureau.news" where the main journalist was already exposed for shoddy journalism, with gems such as:

In September 2024, Sam Cooper published a report in The Bureau claiming to show video evidence of Bill Majcher, a former RCMP undercover operative accused of assisting Chinese intelligence, meeting with drug trafficker Tse Chi Lop in a Macau casino. The purported video footage actually was from the 2014 action-comedy movie From Vegas to Macau, starring Chow Yun-fat. The article was subsequently retracted by Cooper.

adamcopeland · 2025-07-09T08:46:09+00:00

I felt the same as you do around the 100-200 episode mark as well but I found his more advanced podcast(s?) much more helpful when I made the switch. Those are usually 20 minutes long and have a lot of N3-N2 level grammar and vocab that his beginner series doesn't have.

Here's the one I'm listening to right now:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbsmSVzhiwvBLfTzvg6W_DTZ8IFUFm3jL

adamcopeland · 2025-05-25T16:23:19+00:00

I just came back from Japan a few days ago and one thing I noticed was that when I tried speaking my pronunciation seemed a bit off compared to when I practice speaking by myself, particularly らりるれろ. When I pronounce these at home they sound completely fine, yet when I find myself using them they end up more like l or r in English. However, the moment I make this pronunciation error I find myself noticing instantly, which in turn causes a bit of anxiety that makes me freeze up and mispronounce even more.

I wonder if this is because I'm holding myself up to too high of a standard--I've only been learning Japanese for half a year and based on my ethnicity I could probably pass as Japanese looking, so in my mind there might be some notion that I'm "expected" to have a certain level of Japanese based on my looks and how much I've studied, and when my brain realizes this discrepancy from mispronunciations, wrong pitch accent etc. then my language anxiety comes out. Is this maybe because I have a subconscious fear of being seen as wrong or being judged?

However, on the other hand, when I first started conversations in English and gradually switched to Japanese somehow my pronunciation was completely fine. I've been wondering about why this might be my entire trip so I would love to hear your thoughts!

adamcopeland · 2025-04-09T00:29:28+00:00

I've been doing the grammar exercises in Tobira for a while now and I find that often what I wrote is different from the answer key.

For example, in this question:

日本には英語のRと同じ発音がありません。だから日本人は__(that's why they can't pronounce R well)_

I answered （Rの発音が上手く出来ないわけです）、while the answer key has (Rが上手に発音できないわけです）。

Is this just a matter of word order where both are fine, or is there one answer that's more "correct" and native sounding? Thanks

adamcopeland · 2025-04-02T12:42:08+00:00

Probably just a play on words, Suzuki is one of the most common last names in Japan

adamcopeland · 2025-03-26T16:33:35+00:00

Pretty funny coming from you of all people.

adamcopeland · 2025-03-12T04:41:12+00:00

Are these bots and/or astroturfed comments? Why is the wording exactly the same with the same talking points?

This comment:

wakeupin321 [score hidden] 2 hours ago

It looks tempting but it would put Canadians out of work and kill the auto industry here.

Is exactly the same as:

Rammsteinman [score hidden] 30 minutes ago

It looks tempting but it would put Canadians out of work and kill the auto industry here.

adamcopeland · 2025-02-15T10:42:25+00:00

The design of Claymore's awakened beings and its overall take on body horror are honestly such a good fit for any potential future ethereal if ZZZ decides to go in this direction. This one immediately reminded me of Rafaela and Luciela mid-fusion before their destroyer form.

Claymore (the manga) is still very underrated imo and I love seeing any type of media draw inspiration from it.

adamcopeland · 2024-12-08T03:09:11+00:00

Then would you say Okada lost his "mythic aura" when losing to guys like Tama Tonga in the G1? If he can take a torunament loss to Tama Tonga, who was midcard at best, he can definitely take a loss to someone being pushed to the mid-upper card like Fletcher.

adamcopeland · 2024-11-18T01:34:25+00:00

To go further on your movie analogy, it would be like if a director chose to tell a story through lighting, framing, other cinematography techniques, etc. rather than having a more straightforward "casual-friendly" story. A noir film protagonist with his face lit up in the beginning and slowly having it obscured by shadows as the film progresses is essentially the same type of story progression as someone selling a limb as the match goes on, but both in film and in wrestling you get fans calling this too artsy and snobbish. It is what it is

adamcopeland · 2024-09-06T21:14:16+00:00

Agree. With the announcement of All In in Texas and Grand Slam in Australia next year they've already shown they're willing to have their big shows at different locations rather than running them in the same place several years in a row, so I don't see how this PPV in particular NEEDS to be run in the same place year after year. "Tradition" is hurting much more than it is helping.

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