If you’re interested in learning the language, but don’t have 3 years to prepare:

Jisho.org is an online English-Japanese dictionary that helps you find words by selecting radicals from a chart. You can learn to break down 99% of common kanji into their radicals within a week and then it’s a matter of selecting 2 or 3 radicals in the chart and matching the picture. Finding all the kanji in a sentence (or more likely, the three kanji on a menu item) should give you a decent idea of the full meaning. Now you point at the menu, say the standard question from your phrase book, give a polite nod, hold out your money at the appropriate time, and you’re nihongo jouzu.

Edit: I would only recommend this method if we’re not using Google Lens. Lens is way faster and you can still decipher the menu with your dictionary after your food arrived.

Hiragana is a kind of alphabet imo. It maps a single character to a single sound.

Inb4 we argue about what counts as a “single sound”.

I agree that not everything is related to Donald Trump and America’s system of government.

I wish some subjects could be apolitical: there’s no reason for trans healthcare to be politicized while other healthcare is seen as a basic need. But as we know, even “healthcare is a basic need” is a topic of political discussion in some countries (cough). The choice to make it “apolitical” is itself a political act. So yes, everything is political. From the food you eat to the music you listen to.

You have to think as an American and see that it’s about cars, drive-throughs and lane merges.

The kid, in therapy later: I found something in the store… A place. I found a place. It’s like the store just continues. There’s a wall… and on the other side of the wall, the store just keeps going, like a copy of itself.

Instead of the zapper, use the dropper and make it a permanent rule in your ublock

Time is money, but the grinding does not make the gatcha, the pulling does.

Every pull should cost money, which disqualifies most roguelikes. Pregnancy is still a gatcha though, especially if you’re recycling for free pulls.

To begin, it does accumulate in the region where it is created, but of course it diffuses over time, so 10 pollution could be 7 locally and 3 globally. The heavy elements (soot) never get very far and naturally fall out of the air. Some elements are broken down by sunlight. Some bind to rain and are washed into the ground. If pollution is constant, you reach an equilibrium in the air quality. Decreasing output slowly lowers that equilibrium and improves the air quality in the end.

Oh I thought you were joking in a “no way to stop this, says only country where this regularly happens” way.