Learning guides
Understand readings and expressions, then put them into practice with review and mock tests.
入浴 and 浴びる: bathing, sunlight, and muddy water
Follow bathing as an activity and the people or objects receiving sunlight or muddy water. Read the reason for going onto the balcony and the bicycle affected by a splash.
暮らす and 住む: wishes, residence, and who learns
Read wishes, periods of residence, and the roles of learners and local residents in 暮らす and 住む examples. Keep their overlapping meanings of living and residing.
生活 and 日常: living and ordinary life in photographs
Read life in a new city alongside ordinary life after a trip and in a town photo collection. Follow what the photographs record rather than inventing a photographer’s daily schedule.
起床 and 就寝: before a wake-up signal and bedtime
Follow the stated rising and bedtime hours, waking before a signal, and reading before bed. Keep each earlier action related to its own reference event.
昼寝, 居眠り, and 寝坊: a ten-minute nap, dozing, and sleeping late
Read the nap’s ten-minute duration, dozing on a train or in a meeting, and oversleeping on holidays. Keep 十分 as a length of time in the lunch example.
試食 and 試飲: tasters and cups set out for sampling
Compare sampling bread and tea, customers who already tasted food, and paper cups intended for tasting. Follow a person’s prior action and an object’s purpose.
喫茶 and 飲酒: tea-drinking customs and drinking alcohol
Read an old tea-drinking custom, a room where tea can be enjoyed, and alcohol drinking in stated restrictions. Keep the activities and the venue’s scope in view.
刻む: chopping an onion and engraving names
Distinguish the onion being finely chopped from people’s names to be engraved on a stone monument. Read the material, inscription, location, and planned timing.
盛る: serving rice and heaping up soil
Compare serving freshly cooked rice into a bowl with heaping soil in a garden corner. Use the object, location, and resulting mound to read the two senses of 盛る.
浸す, 漬ける, and 浸る: Soaking, pickling, and being immersed
Compare soaking and pickling in the cloth and food examples with shoes submerged to ankle level and a person absorbed in memories. Follow the object, medium, and immersed subject.
住宅 and 家屋: housing needs and individual dwellings
Compare 住宅 in examples about new housing and a shortage with 家屋 for a house converted into an inn and homes recreated in a model. The number of homes does not define the difference.
建物, 建築, and 建設: buildings, architecture, and construction
Compare the object named 建物 with 建築 for building activity or architectural technique and 建設 for bridge and library construction. The library examples show that the meanings can overlap.
新築 and 改築: new building and changes to an existing building
Compare a newly built house and library with the conversion of an old barn and renovation of a school building. Follow new construction versus alteration of an existing building.
増築 and 改装: adding space and remodeling existing space
Compare 増築 for adding a room or extending a library with 改装 for remodeling a warehouse or store interior. Identify added space and changed existing space in the examples.
堀 and 溝: moats, ditches, and rifts between people
Compare 堀 for a castle moat or field-side ditch with 溝 for a roadside ditch or a rift in a relationship. Follow the overlapping physical meaning and the abstract relationship meaning.
修繕 and 修復: mending, repair, and restoration
Compare 修繕 for a leaking roof and an old jacket with 修復 for a mural and a broken model. Read the focus of mending or restoration while allowing the repair meanings to overlap.
基礎 and 土台: building foundations and a basis for learning
Compare 基礎 for grammar basics and a building foundation with 土台 for a house foundation and the basis of later learning. Both words have physical and abstract examples.
構造 and 構成: structural relationships and composition
Compare a bridge’s internal structure and a story’s intersecting timelines with the composition of a presentation or story. Follow relationships, parts, and each term’s sentence role.
骨組み and 骨格: frames, skeletons, and conceptual frameworks
Compare a house frame and a bird’s skeleton with frameworks for a presentation and a project. Both words also have abstract uses for an organizing framework.
設計: designing a bridge and a desk’s storage purpose
Compare the act of designing in 設計して with a design characteristic in 設計になっている. Read the model built after a bridge design and the desk’s purpose of providing more storage.
鉄骨 and 鉄筋: steel beams and reinforcing bars
Compare 鉄骨 used in a frame or lifted by a crane with 鉄筋 tied into a frame or visible inside a wall. Follow which member is described as thick or rusty.
木造, 煉瓦, and 瓦: wooden construction, bricks, and roof tiles
Compare 木造 describing a wooden school building with 煉瓦 for bricks and 瓦 for roof tiles. Separate a building’s material description from the names of individual components.
門, 門扉, and 戸口: gates, gate doors, and doorways
Compare a school’s 門 with 門扉 that is locked or carved and 戸口 blocked by a package or reached by a dog. Follow the gate object and the doorway space.
垣根: a garden hedge and departmental barriers
Compare trimming a garden’s 垣根 with crossing 部署の垣根 to exchange ideas. Follow a physical fence or hedge and the figurative barrier between departments.
壁面 and 外壁: a wall’s surface and an exterior wall
Compare 壁面 used for posting a map or cleaning a wall surface with 外壁 for repainting or damage to an exterior wall. Follow the naming criteria of surface and exterior location.
床下 and 地下室: under the floor and a basement room
Compare 床下 for a cat’s location or a moisture inspection with 地下室 for stored fruit wine or machinery sounds. Distinguish underfloor space from a basement or cellar room.
軒, 軒下, and 縁側: eaves, space beneath them, and a veranda
Compare 軒 in a resting place or nest context with 軒下 under the eaves and 縁側 for looking at flowers or napping. Read overlapping eaves-related locations and the veranda name.
障子 and 畳: paper sliding doors and tatami mats
Compare 障子 receiving new paper or transmitting light with 畳 giving off a scent or serving as a sitting surface. Distinguish the mat name たたみ from the folding verb たたむ.
吹き抜け: an open space connecting windows and lighting
Read 吹き抜け for an open atrium above an entrance or a double-height space holding a light. Distinguish the space from the windows seen across it and the light hanging within it.
内装 and 外装: interiors, exteriors, and outer packaging
Compare 内装 for a store interior or vehicle interior with 外装 for a building exterior or box packaging. Follow names for inner and outer parts beyond buildings alone.