Currently I am level 6. And I continue to get confused with the correct reading for 日
sometimes is reads か
sometimes it reads にち
sometimes it reads じつ
Sometimes it reads っか
My question: Are there any rules or guides to help me know which to use each? Or is it just brute memorization?
Bonus Question: 月 Reads either げつ or がつ
I mix these up also… any rules to help with this… like does the げ switch to が after particular sounds similar to the way we use a and an ? if the answer is yes please tell me the rule.
Unfortunately there are no set rules for which reading 日 will take, same goes for 人 for にん vs じん, so it really comes down to memorization as you keep going, you’ll start getting a “feel” for it though and it’ll come more naturally to you to remember which reading it will be in the different vocab, so try to memorize it the best you can for now!
As for げつ vs がつ for 月 when referring to months, there aren’t really any set rules either but the way I like to think about it is:
The がつ reading can be seen when referring to something specific, like months of the year
→ “January” → 月 = いちがつ
→ “February” → 二月 = にがつ
→ “March” → 三月 = さんがつ
→ “April” → 四月 = しがつ
etc…
As for something like 何月 (なんがつ) - “what month”, it’s asking for a specific month as an answer, thus this also uses the がつ reading
げつ can be seen for broader terms, examples being:
→ “end of the month” → 月末 = げつまつ
→ “every month” → 毎月 = まいげつ
–>“next month” → 翌月 = よくげつ
–>“month after next” → 再来月 = さらいげつ
Since these aren’t referring to a specific month and are being used in a more general sense, they are seen to take the げつ reading
Of course, this isn’t perfect, there really aren’t set rules for these – they’re are just patterns I picked up that helped me remember some of the readings, so I hope they can be of use to you too! Keep pushing on and you’ll get better at remembering the different readings for each individual item and it’ll become more second nature to you
This! I cannot stress this enough! Listen to a lot of Japanese while learning grammar and vocabulary. It’s really bothersome in the beginning, because you have to look up most of everything, but when you hear/see something you just learned in the wild, it gets reinforced like no amount of repetition/mnemonics can get it to (does that phrase even make sense?).
as you keep going, you’ll start getting a “feel” for it though and it’ll come more naturally to you to remember which reading it will be in the different vocab, so try to memorize it the best you can for now!
