Learning guides
Understand readings and expressions, then put them into practice with review and mock tests.
鮮魚 and 刺身: Fresh fish and sashimi as a dish
Compare 鮮魚 in a market or storage description with 刺身 made or ordered as a dish. Keep freshness-based naming separate from the dish name and ordering separate from eating.
炊く and 炊事: Rice, the cooking tool, and the activity
Read the rice object and the clay-pot tool in 土鍋で米を炊く. Compare those roles with 炊事 as a meal-preparation activity someone takes charge of and with 炊事の後 marking cleanup afterward.
解凍: Thawing food and decompressing a file
Compare 解凍 applied to frozen fish with 解凍 applied to a compressed file whose contents are then checked. Follow the object to distinguish food thawing from data decompression.
鍋: A cooking pot and a hotpot meal
Compare a large 鍋 used to cook vegetables with 鍋 as a hotpot meal someone wants to share with family. Use the surrounding verb and context while preserving the wish.
味 and 風味: Taste, character, and retained flavor
Compare 味 in soup and a handwritten sign with 風味 added to a dish or retained in cooled tea. Follow the evaluated target and the condition under which flavor remains.
匂い and 臭い: Two におい spellings and smell sources
Compare 匂い and 臭い read as におい through bread, flowers, fish, and old wood. Follow each smell’s source rather than imposing an absolute pleasant-versus-unpleasant spelling rule.
甘い: A sweet peach and a lenient judgment
Compare 甘い describing a peach’s sweetness with 甘い describing a father’s judgment about the younger brother. Follow the evaluated target, degree, and tense rather than an assumed ingredient or overall character.
辛い: からい for spiciness and つらい for difficulty
Compare 辛い read as からい for food and sauce with 辛い read as つらい for parting and unfamiliar work. Follow the reading and evaluated target despite the shared spelling.
甘味, 辛味, 苦味, and 酸味: Taste names and changes
Compare sweetness, spiciness, bitterness, and acidity in the stated food examples. Keep delayed 辛味 and slightly softened 苦味 attached to their timing and degree.
味わう: Tasting food and savoring a poem’s lingering impression
Compare tasting regional food slowly with savoring a poem’s lingering impression. Follow 料理 and 詩の余韻 as the objects and preserve the past versus nonpast wording.
油脂 and 脂肪: Oils, fats, and the residue on a fan
Compare 油脂 in food labels or greasy residue with 脂肪 in the body or fish. Follow the named target while allowing the meanings to overlap.
牛乳, 豆乳, and 乳製品: Drinks and dairy products made with milk
Compare milk and soy milk as drink names with dairy products made using milk. Read 牛乳 as the ingredient and 乳製品 as the product category.
発酵, 酵母, and 熟成: A process, yeast, and maturation
Compare fermentation, yeast used in fermentation, and maturation. Follow the sentence role of 酵母で and the duration stated with 熟成.
腐敗 and 腐食: Rot, fictional corruption, and metal corrosion
Compare fruit beginning to rot and corruption portrayed in a novel with metal corrosion. Follow the physical target, metaphor, and scope of the reported reading.
新鮮 and 鮮度: A fresh opinion and food freshness
Compare 新鮮 evaluating vegetables or a different generation’s views with 鮮度 naming food freshness. Distinguish an opinion’s novelty from a food’s condition.
生（なま）: An uncooked state and checking a raw egg’s shell
Read 生 as なま for an uncooked state. Separate the particular fish’s stated possibility from the object checked before cracking a raw egg.
栄養 and 栄養素: Nutrition, nutrients, and a menu’s aim
Compare nutrition as a broad focus with particular nutrients. Read the aim of planning a menu that does not focus on only one nutrient.
空腹 and 満腹: Hunger, fullness, and declining dessert
Compare hunger or an empty stomach with fullness. Read being full as the stated reason for declining dessert.
衛生, 清潔, and 不潔: Hygiene, states, and impressions
Compare hygiene management with a room’s cleanliness, the impression of white walls, and dirtiness portrayed in a film. Follow the content each sentence describes.
消毒 and 殺菌: Disinfection, sterilization, and their objects
Read the targets of disinfection and sterilization. Separate washing a wound from disinfecting its surroundings, and method checking from completed sterilization.
洗浄 and 洗濯: Cleaning instruments or pipes and doing laundry
Compare 洗浄 for instruments or pipe interiors with 洗濯 for laundry. Distinguish introducing a cleaning device from completion of the cleaning it is designed for.
漂白: Bleaching cloth and possible damage to old paper
Read 漂白 with cloth and paper as its objects. Compare completed bleaching and rinsing with the possibility of damage under a stated condition.
絞る and 搾る: Wringing, narrowing candidates, and extracting liquid
Compare the two spellings read しぼる through cloth, candidates, lemon juice, and milk. Distinguish narrowing a candidate range from extracting liquid.
干す and 乾かす: Spreading beans to dry and drying objects
Compare 干す for laundry or spread-out beans with 乾かす for shoes or paint. Read the mat-and-beans example without restricting 干す to hanging things.
換気, 冷房, and 暖房: Ventilation, cooling, and heating
Compare ventilation with the state, settings, and use of cooling and heating. Read a temperature-setting adjustment as an action with a stated purpose, without assuming the bill fell.
家事 and 炊事: Household chores and meal preparation
Compare the broad scope of household chores with meal preparation. Follow shared family chores, finished morning chores, cooking duty at a mountain hut, and washing dishes afterward.
掃く and 拭く: Sweeping leaves and wiping water
Compare sweeping fallen leaves or a floor with wiping spilled water or a mirror. Read the action and its object together with the broom, cloth, or paper used in each example.
畳む and 裏返す: Folding objects and turning them over
Compare folding a shirt or umbrella with turning over meat or paper. A map seen after the paper is flipped was already printed on the other side.
衣替え and 着替え: Seasonal wardrobe changes and a change of clothes
Compare seasonal wardrobe changes with changing clothes or a set of clothes to change into. In 着替えを一組, 一組 counts the clothes brought, rather than a completed act of changing.
器: A bowl for soup and the capacity to lead
Compare 器 as a physical container with its meaning of personal capacity. Read a soup bowl alongside a man's own admission that he lacked the capacity to lead many people.