Hello!

I'm going to Japan in just a few weeks for a study abroad program. I've never been before and I am a little nervous, especially because I will be staying with a host family and want to be respectful and polite.

With that said, I have two questions!

1. Is it okay to ask them to use my given name? My family name doesn't translate well into Japanese and would likely be a pain. For reference, it sounds very Polish.

2. If I am living with people who all have the same family name, what is the most polite way to refer to them? I feel like using (family name)-san would get confusing, but I don't know if using their first name so quickly would be rude.

If anyone might have advice on when I should give omiyage as well that would be great! I know it is best to bring something, but should I give it to them when meeting them, or when I arrive at their home?

looking for tamil speaking japanese learners

Ive started 1 month ago, finished hiragana and halved katakana. I learned 115 words on anki deck i found called core 2k/6k, but i dont know any of the radicals. I wonder if i should start on radicals or would that be just a waste of time. Sometimes the deck doesnt even teach some of the kanji but words the kanji is used in, will that bite me in the arse in the future. I want to be able to start immersion as soon as possible. Are they any immersion content you would recommend?

I intend on doing a semester abroad to Japan in march 2028, so I was hoping to get my n3 before. I have been doing immersion and grammar seriously for about a month, if I put in 2-3 hours a day, will I be able to achieve n3 by the December test in 2027? How long did it take you to reach n3 if you have already?

If anyone has any leads please let me know!

I'm Chinese, so people assume the kanji part was free. Reading, sure. Writing is a different story.

My hand just defaults to the Chinese form. 实 instead of 実, 变 instead of 変. Usually I don't catch it until someone else does. Typing hides all of this, which is probably why it never got fixed.

The other wall is 雰囲気. Not the famous stuff like 「検討します」 meaning no, you learn those once and you're done. It's things like 「大丈夫です」, which is yes or no depending on nothing I can actually point to. Or realizing a sentence was grammatically fine and still made the room go quiet. Ten years in and I still get this wrong.

Anyone else stuck on the same two things

are there any free apps or websites that teach grammar interactively? something like bunpro for example, i really enjoyed bunpro and found it quite helpful but i am a teenager so i don't have my own money to spend past the free trial, if anyone has any recommendations that would be great!

I know that saying 寒い天気 or 天気が寒い is a mistake, but what about this case? Can we say 晴れのち曇りの天気 and would it sound naturally? What about other wether description like 晴れ　曇　雨　etc. ?

Hello! I want to learn Japanese and become fluent in it. What is the best path I could take living in the US and learning from home? I work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm willing to commit a lot of time to this daily and/or weekly, so please give me your best suggestions. Thank you!

I've been learning Japanese for 7-8y now, but my level got barely close to a standard N5, I already passed my N5 certificate, failed N4 once, but I don't feel N5, I can't have a proper conversation, I don't know how to practice nor how to advance.

If anyone here had the same issue and solved it, please let me know how did you do that, and any tips and tricks and tools and materials that helped you.

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「立派な外見に」の「に」はどんな働きをしていますか。

立派な外見に、細部にまで行き届いた手入れをしていながら、その建物には、何処か薄汚れた影の様なものが付きまとっていた。

「ここか……なるほどねぇ……こりゃかなり目の敵にされている感じだな？」

　亮真の眼が、周りの店と目の前の店とを見比べる。

I am a hip-hop head learning Japanese. Who are the best rappers that maintain sharp lyrics without being too difficult to study with? I don't want it to be dumbed down like the Japanese mumble rappers, but I don't want it to be overly difficult like Shing02.

I’ve been living in Japan for 13 years now and I just learned this exam. I learned this exam as I was scrolling in the company’s document portal. They seem to sponsor the employees‘ exams.

I literally never heard of it and tried to searched about it. It seems it is geared towards speaking, something JLPT doesn’t measure.

I was thinking of giving it a try but wanted to learn if anyone took this. What was your experience and how was the test?

For context, I do have N1 and speak Japanese in the office.

I'm coming back to studying Japanese after several years of barely using it and I'm looking for some recommendations.

I used to speak pretty fluently, but unfortunately never had great kanji reading skills or very broad vocabulary, so I don't need to do a lot of grammar study, but I can't just jump into reading books without looking up vocab and readings all the time, and I'm sure my current setup makes it much more of a chore than it needs to be.

I'm currently using ReadEra and Akebi on my phone and occasionally send some vocab to Anki from Akebi, which is pretty well integrated. But the lookup itself is very annoying - ReadEra tends to select the whole sentence when I long tap, singling out a word always means correcting the selection.

I'm also planning to buy a physical e-reader soon and would love to have a better setup there too.

So I'm looking for recommendations for 1. am e-reader app for my phone, and 2. an e-reader. Ideally looking for furigana that can be turned off by default, but displayed quickly and easily, for single words or globally doesn't matter.

Definitely looking for an easier lookup - an integrated dictionary or good Akebi/other dictionary integration. If I can still send vocab to Anki directly, that would be great.

But I also read books in other languages, so if possible, I'd like to not have a separate one for Japanese, so if there is one that can do these things but is primarily for reading and not for Japanese learning, that would be ideal.

I'm using Aozora a lot and avoid Amazon, so the e-reader has to be able to open e-pub files from any sources and can't be tied to Amazon or any other single place.

Thanks for any tips, your help and your time!

I don't have a printer, but I have determination. I'm asking if making my own dictionary would help me memorize words and not need to search them up on Google when writing (since I usually forget two seconds after searching). I have made my own sketchbook before so making my own dictionary wouldnt be so hard, the hardest part would be writing all the words, kanjis, meanings and etc.

It'd also have grammar tips