Advice & Suggestions ～たほうがいい
About this unit
Japanese advice comes in comparative form, たほうがいい literally says the doing side is better, and it arrives wrapped in hedges: かもしれません (might be), すぎる (too much), てしまう (went and happened). Together they're the grammar of looking after people, which is what this unit's story needs: Maria has been studying past midnight for weeks, and her body just filed a complaint.
語彙 · Vocabulary
Read the words 語彙
Read straight down the list once, out loud if you can. Don't grind them here, the Anki deck at the bottom does the memorizing. Right now you only want the shapes and sounds to feel familiar.
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 病気 | びょうき | illness |
| 病院 | びょういん | hospital; clinic |
| 医者 | いしゃ | doctor |
| 歯医者 | はいしゃ | dentist |
| 薬 | くすり | medicine |
| 薬屋 | くすりや | pharmacy; drugstore |
| 風邪 | かぜ | a cold |
| 熱 | ねつ | fever |
| 咳 | せき | cough |
| 喉 | のど | throat |
| 頭 | あたま | head |
| お腹 | おなか | stomach; belly |
| 歯 | は | tooth |
| 怪我 | けが | injury |
| 気分 | きぶん | mood; feeling |
| 具合 | ぐあい | condition (of health/things) |
| 痛い | いたい | painful; it hurts |
| 体 | からだ | body; health |
| 心 | こころ | heart; mind |
| 注意 | ちゅうい | caution; attention |
| 注意します | ちゅういします | to be careful; to warn |
| 注射 | ちゅうしゃ | injection; shot |
| 入院 | にゅういん | hospitalization |
| 入院します | にゅういんします | to be hospitalized |
| 死にます | しにます | to die |
| 生きます | いきます | to live; to be alive |
| 治ります | なおります | to get better; to heal |
| 引きます | ひきます | to catch (a cold); to pull |
| 疲れます | つかれます | to get tired |
| 眠い | ねむい | sleepy |
| 大切 | たいせつ | important; precious |
| マスク | マスク | (surgical) mask |
| ストレス | ストレス | stress |
| 心配 | しんぱい | worry; concern |
| 心配します | しんぱいします | to worry |
| お大事に | おだいじに | take care (of yourself) |
Learn the kanji 漢字
The 10 kanji for this unit. Tap any card to flip between its meaning and its readings, and say the reading aloud as it flips.
Read it in context 会話
Everything above, working together. Read the conversation top to bottom, out loud. Every line is built only from words and kanji you have already met, so resist the English, tap a word only if you are truly stuck.
Maria shows up to class flushed and foggy after too many midnight study sessions. Everyone has advice; the neighborhood clinic has the final word.
These units are short on purpose. The grammar only clicks when the words are already automatic, so front-load the deck here, and let spaced repetition do the memorizing while the lesson does the teaching.
- Import this unit's deck. Generate it with
npm run content:deck, then importn4-unit8-deck.apkginto Anki or Migaku. (SRS connection status lives on your dashboard.) - Learn all 36 words as new cards. Get through the whole deck in a sitting or two, you're aiming for recognition, not mastery yet.
- Review daily until every card reaches a 3–5 day interval. When the whole deck has settled at that spacing, the words are holding on their own and won't fight you during the grammar.
- Then come back. You'll read the patterns instead of decoding the words, and that's when a "small" unit actually soaks in.
Tick the box above once the deck is soaking in, then the grammar unlocks.
文法 · Grammar
Take one pattern at a time. Read the rule, then read each example out loud until the shape feels obvious. The words should already be automatic from your deck, so all you are learning here is how they lock together.
文化 · Culture note
A short read on the world these words live in. Nothing to drill here, just the context that makes the grammar feel like something people actually say.
In Japan you don't tough out a cold, you go to the clinic, and it's easy enough that people actually do. Neighborhood clinics take walk-ins, national insurance covers 70% of costs, and the whole visit, reception, exam, prescription, often finishes inside an hour. The doctor's questions follow this unit's script almost exactly: どうしましたか, いつからですか, ねつはありますか. You now speak medical Japanese's opening moves.
The pharmacy ritual has its own vocabulary. Prescriptions are filled at a 薬局 next door, where the pharmacist explains each medicine: 食後 (after meals), 一日三回 (three times a day). Drugstores, ドラッグストア, are a separate, glorious institution selling everything from cold medicine to cosmetics to snacks, and navigating one is an immersion course in itself. The white masks everywhere aren't (only) germ paranoia: wearing a mask when YOU are sick is basic courtesy, like covering a cough.
And the culture worries about overwork for good reason, がんばりすぎ (trying too hard) is a recognized national hazard. The reply to almost any illness story is おだいじに (take care of yourself), and the standing advice to the overcommitted is this unit's grammar verbatim: むりをしないほうがいいですよ. Maria's doctor is quoting the whole country.
Placement credited this unit, the worksheet and quiz are optional.
生教材 · Immersion
This week in the wild
Health talk is high-frequency, high-stakes immersion, you want these words automatic before you ever need them. This week's missions stock your first-aid vocabulary.
You will not understand everything, that is the point. Success is recognizing this unit's patterns in the wild, not full comprehension. Tick what you tried and move on.
発話 · Speaking
Ghosting
Advice and symptoms, the sentences you most want automatic under stress. Ghost the clinic lines, then answer the prompts; say あたまがいたいんです like you mean it, because someday you will.
Three passes per line: listen, speak along with the voice (that's the ghost), then speak alone. Out loud, whispering doesn't build the muscle. Prompt drills show English first: answer in Japanese before revealing.
Audio uses your browser's Japanese voice. If you hear nothing, your system may need a Japanese voice installed, read the lines aloud from the text instead; the ghost pass still works.
練習 · Worksheet
Type each missing form in hiragana, then check your answers.
Check your answers to continue, it doesn't matter how many you miss.
Unit Quiz JLPT FORMAT
Pass mark 80% · instant explanations · passing unlocks the next unit