Thanks, but what’s the extra “かい” after it?
just makes it into a question 
Oh wow, never seen it before… Thank you!!
I watched シンゴジラ the other day, and the vast amount of words related to politics made me wonder how to approach learning words （and turning said words into flash cards) that I don’t understand the role of in the first place. (also, holy shit, talk about 早口言葉） It’s not limited to political words either, but this example is the best example.
Like, yeah, I can tell you what word means “the diet”, but I can’t actually tell you what “the diet” is, beyond it being a part of the Japanese system of government. This applies to both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, at least in my experience. Of course, I have to learn these words eventually, even if it’s just a loose definition, because that’s part of learning a language, and I can’t go “oh i can’t watch this because i don’t understand what a 内閣 is”. With some other words I don’t understand the English for and the monolingual dictionary’s definitions are a little beyond me, I can go “秋刀魚 means Saury, and through context I can figure out that saury is the name of a fish”. With flower names or most land animals, I can just google image it. But political contexts (and scientific contexts), things are much more intricate and said intricacy is more important to the plot, and remembering which political system is which is difficult when I don’t understand politics, math, or scientific lingo in either language. There’s absolutely more that I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Should I just be more aggressive with learning these kinds of words going forward. Watch a documentary on the Japanese political system, and hope the associations made there make the process easier? Or can I just go with a very loose understanding, and eventually with a combination of flash cards with loose definitions and seeing the words used in immersion it’ll eventually stick?
I’m assuming based on what you wrote that your first language is English? I would suggest learning/ researching what the word means in your first language and then use a documentary or something in Japanese that references politics a lot to get the immersion bit into play. I remember learning about the government etc in school and it really wasn’t something I could learn in my first language without all of the immersion and having to read articles referencing it over and over to know what controls what exactly. Especially since a lot of government/scientific words can be so easily confused for others since they are so specific.
Wikipedia articles on government of japan in Japanese and English sound like a good starting point. Japanese version has the native terms, English can be used to quickly scan for any specific information you need. And there are links to further explain related terms, branches, offices etc.
For example I might not know what a Diet is, but if it says Legislative branch, that helps.
I’d probably start there for any unfamiliar topic, before looking for other resources.
Bonus point: it’s a webpage, so it’s easy to mine for cards if desired, or review with jpdbreader.
Thanks to the both of you for the helpful feedback. I’ll try applying said advice going forward with my studies.
I can’t even recognize it as Japanese text 
I wonder if it’d be alright to tag @Vanilla considering their help in the stylized kanji thread that closed a while back.
Would you happen to know what is written here?
Hmm honestly not sure. My best guess is 祈りをともに just based off of something that makes general sense and has the general shape.
祈
り
But I don’t really like how the top right corner looks. I don’t actually know anything about calligraphy, but I feel like that sort of loop is something usually pretty intentional. It looks more to me like 礼
But I can’t think of what the rest would be unless im dumb and just missing something obvious
Thanks, yeah, calligraphy is so confusing but at least 祈り is a word
Shit it was an advertisement all along
Could it be 語 ？
@UInt2048 I finally got around to asking a Japanese friend who also said 祈り at first but was not sure. So I googled and found this: 祈りをともに｜Y.Sakurai which seems to support that theory I guess?
I’m at work now and just asked my coworker and he said 祈り as well basically instantly. There’s our answer
As this year has gone on, I’ve been engaging in more and more aggressive listening practice (a lot of rewinding lines of anime as I watch it over and over and a lot of mistaking 「浴衣着たい」for 「床叩きたい」). It’s been a pretty rewarding experience, and with that I’ve developed some questions.
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In the case of say, 人形 and 人魚, or 八日 and 四日, or in the case of pitch accent, how much “wiggle room” is there? I was not paying nearly as much attention to this as I probably should’ve been when I first started, so I have to play catchup. Are natives really one hundred percent accurate with this sort of thing, or is there a level of looseness? Right now I’m worried less about my own pronunciation and more about catching the pronunciation of others (although if I ever go to Japan, pronouncing 少女 as しょじょ sounds like a real good way to get into a fight). I know some words you can get away with pronouncing it wrong (ほんと and ほんとう). Is the best way to find out just more immersion? Is practicing pronouncing it something that’ll lead to being able to hear it?
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I understand pitch accent itself is important (I’ve been doing a lot of this guy too) partially because of a very nice reply I got in this thread, but are the rules behind it actually important to memorize? Wouldn’t it make more sense just to practice recognizing the pitch itself instead of having to list rules through your head?
also any sort of trick to listening practice would be appreciated
Unfortunately, the natives are 100% accurate usually and if they’re unsure they will ask you which one you mean. Same with pitch accent. I once had a student ask what “chopsticks” was in English and I said はし and she asked me which one because I didn’t have any pitch with it which she was confused by. With 八日 and 四日 there is absolutely NO wiggle room. You will get the date wrong for sure.
I think this is just being more casual by dropping the う rather than both being the same word. They mean the same, but pronouncing it correctly will be the most polite.
I would say do active listening and try to really focus on trying to hear the long vowels. I have a hard time myself, and I don’t really have a good answer on how to fix it, but context and very careful listening should help make them easier to hear.
I think this just depends on your learning style and what you find works best for you. Learning the rules might help you predict new things though!
This is a common misunderstanding I see amongst people who haven’t studied pitch very much.
Let me ask a similar question. Wouldn’t it be easier to just memorize the meanings and readings of Kanji without having to flip through mnemonics in your head?
Someone experienced in learning with mnemonics would probably reply with something along the lines of “well, you use the mnemonics to recall the word in reviews, but in the long term the mnemonic fades from memory and you’re not actually recalling it each time you want to read a word”
Pitch rules are the same. They are not the goal. They just assist you in reaching the goal by helping you when you practice. If you know general rules, you can self check and remember information a lot better. This won’t be ideal for smooth communication, but it’s not supposed to be. It helps you with the practice that you need for smooth communication and then eventually you stop being conscious of the rule. Your pitch is only going to get fixed when you repeatedly output the correct pitch. If you want to be able to make sure of that yourself, learning some rules will be helpful.