I’m starting to understand native material more and more (or at least I think I do). However, unlike apps and text books, real life doesn’t have answer sheets. How do you check if you actually understand what you are reading/hearing?
Translate something and then ask someone who is Japanese if you got it right.
It’s a great sanity check.
A simpler and more beginner-friendly way is, do something like the Genki workbook, and then look at the answer key and see if you got things right.
I read a chapter of a book in Japanese and then the same chapter in an English digital copy of the same book and look for things I missed or misunderstood. Then I can focus on that section and see what confused me in more detail.
For example I just finished a chapter of Spice and Wolf 4 and I thought Holo was really angry in one section for a few pages but upon reading the English I found she was scared. I got the rest 99% but that one section really altered the arc of the chapter in my head, so now I have to go back and see how I mixed it up. Fixed stares, shaking, all kinds of things cross over with fear and anger, but somehow it’s clear in English and not in Japanese, so I have something new to learn.
You could look at some jlpt reading questions to get an idea. But eventually something won’t make sense if you misinterpreted it and you’ll realize you misunderstood from that
Not understanding the question. Why don’t you stop and look up to confirm you’re understanding correctly? Or ask someone.
Honestly, a lot of what I read is instructional, so if I misunderstand, it’s obvious. Things like game guides, recipes and craft tutorials.
If I can follow a story without subtitles
This is where tests like JLPT actually come in handy. While they have answer sheets, you need comprehension to score well.
depending on your comprehension whatever youre reading tends to corrects your misunderstanding within the next sentence or couple of paragraphs
I wrote a bit here in the past for a similar question that can be summarised [here](https://morg.systems/697c5868), however the tl;dr is that **it doesn’t matter if you __REALLY__ understand Japanese or not**. People have misunderstandings all the time no matter the language or the language ability, just look at any type of debate or internet argument among even native speakers in English. It’s normal/common for one person to say A and the other person to understand B. Language is ambiguous and confusing by definition.
Obviously as a learner it will be more ambiguous and confusing than it is not, and it may sound frustrating, but that’s fine. The more you spend time with the language, the more you immerse and make guesses about what you’re reading, the more experience you’ll get and the better you will be able to finetune your understanding of the whole until it becomes less and less ambiguous. If you’re reading a book in Japanese and the story makes sense to you and you are enjoying it, that’s all you need. It doesn’t matter if you **really** read the original author’s intent 100% accurately (you probably won’t), because by the time you are reading it the book becomes **your** interpretation of it (even if it’s incorrect). If something stands out as inconsistent, hard to follow, or unclear, you’ll then know your understanding might not be entirely correct and you can go back to re-read the confusing passages or re-state and change your assumptions based on that, re-evaluate what you read, and improve. That’s the foundation of how we acquire languages.
On top of that, if you are talking with someone (so it’s an active conversation, not passive immersion), you will have plenty of situations where stuff might sound awkward and you’ll have chances to ask for an explanation or for them to re-state what they said in a different form so you can better understand it. This is also normal in your native language too if someone says something that is unclear. Don’t overthink it.
How do you know if you *really* understood a book in English? Do you have to read other people’s analyses of it and make sure you picked up that the blue curtains signified sadness before you are sure?
Use Japanese at work. You’ll find out real quick when you’re falling short.
12 comments
One way is:
Translate something and then ask someone who is Japanese if you got it right.
It’s a great sanity check.
A simpler and more beginner-friendly way is, do something like the Genki workbook, and then look at the answer key and see if you got things right.
I read a chapter of a book in Japanese and then the same chapter in an English digital copy of the same book and look for things I missed or misunderstood. Then I can focus on that section and see what confused me in more detail.
For example I just finished a chapter of Spice and Wolf 4 and I thought Holo was really angry in one section for a few pages but upon reading the English I found she was scared. I got the rest 99% but that one section really altered the arc of the chapter in my head, so now I have to go back and see how I mixed it up. Fixed stares, shaking, all kinds of things cross over with fear and anger, but somehow it’s clear in English and not in Japanese, so I have something new to learn.
You could look at some jlpt reading questions to get an idea. But eventually something won’t make sense if you misinterpreted it and you’ll realize you misunderstood from that
Not understanding the question. Why don’t you stop and look up to confirm you’re understanding correctly? Or ask someone.
Honestly, a lot of what I read is instructional, so if I misunderstand, it’s obvious. Things like game guides, recipes and craft tutorials.
If I can follow a story without subtitles
This is where tests like JLPT actually come in handy. While they have answer sheets, you need comprehension to score well.
depending on your comprehension whatever youre reading tends to corrects your misunderstanding within the next sentence or couple of paragraphs
I wrote a bit here in the past for a similar question that can be summarised [here](https://morg.systems/697c5868), however the tl;dr is that **it doesn’t matter if you __REALLY__ understand Japanese or not**. People have misunderstandings all the time no matter the language or the language ability, just look at any type of debate or internet argument among even native speakers in English. It’s normal/common for one person to say A and the other person to understand B. Language is ambiguous and confusing by definition.
Obviously as a learner it will be more ambiguous and confusing than it is not, and it may sound frustrating, but that’s fine. The more you spend time with the language, the more you immerse and make guesses about what you’re reading, the more experience you’ll get and the better you will be able to finetune your understanding of the whole until it becomes less and less ambiguous. If you’re reading a book in Japanese and the story makes sense to you and you are enjoying it, that’s all you need. It doesn’t matter if you **really** read the original author’s intent 100% accurately (you probably won’t), because by the time you are reading it the book becomes **your** interpretation of it (even if it’s incorrect). If something stands out as inconsistent, hard to follow, or unclear, you’ll then know your understanding might not be entirely correct and you can go back to re-read the confusing passages or re-state and change your assumptions based on that, re-evaluate what you read, and improve. That’s the foundation of how we acquire languages.
On top of that, if you are talking with someone (so it’s an active conversation, not passive immersion), you will have plenty of situations where stuff might sound awkward and you’ll have chances to ask for an explanation or for them to re-state what they said in a different form so you can better understand it. This is also normal in your native language too if someone says something that is unclear. Don’t overthink it.
How do you know if you *really* understood a book in English? Do you have to read other people’s analyses of it and make sure you picked up that the blue curtains signified sadness before you are sure?
Use Japanese at work. You’ll find out real quick when you’re falling short.
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