Gay People Made A Straight Man Cry With Their Response To The Question 'Is Being Gay A Choice?'

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I have always maintained that the fight for LGBT equality can only be won with the help of our straight allies, and this is a noble and fine example. This vlogger (who is straight) changed the life of one young gay man whose own parents not only rejected him when he came out, but subjected him to horrific verbal and physical abuse before tossing him out of his home. The incident brought the vlogger to tears, and his heroic and heartfelt response brought me to them in turn. Hearts and minds are changed one person at a time. But this shows that one person with his heart in the right place really can make a big difference.

Bank of America

Community

34 broken bones, a mural, and Buddy the Elf—what these three things have in common

"I never thought I’d run again. But against the odds, here I am."

True

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon took place on Sunday, October 12th. Every runner who took on the enormous feat of 26.2 miles is truly an inspiration. We’re proud to share three outstanding stories about the power of community, giving back and crossing the finish line. Not only did they run an outstanding distance, but they each also gave back by fundraising for an organization that changes lives for the better.

Running a marathon is so much more than race day. It’s sticking to a schedule, getting enough rest, learning how to fuel your body for long distances, and—perhaps the most challenging of all—building mental resilience.

Meet Leanne: Running after 34 Bone Fractures

Leanne was only 12 years old when during her middle school cross country practice, she fractured her right tibia, the shin bone in her leg. This wasn’t Leanne’s first time breaking a bone—it was actually her 34th fracture. After many years of being overlooked as "clumsy," Leanne felt immense relief and recognition when a doctor diagnosed her with brittle bone disease, an incredibly rare condition.

Lurie Children’s provided a care plan for Leanne to build strength and start running again. And as of October 12th, Leanne ran her second Bank of America Chicago Marathon. She said in an interview, “I never thought I’d run again. But against the odds, here I am, training for my second Bank of America Chicago Marathon... all because of Lurie Children’s.”

Leanne’s impressive journey is a testament to the incredible research of Lurie Children’s, where she gives back by volunteering at the hospital and running on its behalf. Talk about being a true inspiration.

Meet Everett: Running to Inspire Through Art

Everett is an artist who creates beautiful murals around the city of Chicago. He uses his art as a tool for storytelling for community and connection.

In addition to being an artist, Everett is a runner. He ran the 2025 Bank of America Chicago Marathon on behalf of Peace Runners 773, a non-profit organization that strengthens the community of Chicago. In this video, we follow Everett on a run to visit some of his favorite murals. The run ends at Garfield Park, where Everett just finished a mural that he dedicated to the organization—symbolizing growth, strength and togetherness. Everett didn’t stop there.

While building his strength as a runner, Everett is strengthening his city of Chicago. Through his running and artwork, Everett has brought more awareness and resources to his community.

Meet Joseph: Running on Behalf of Special Olympics

Joseph ran the Chicago Marathon on behalf of Special Olympics, dedicating each mile to one of 26 friends with a developmental disability. The last 1.2 miles were extra special. It was for one of his closest friends, Matt.

In this video, Joseph runs to Matt’s house. For every mile of this training run, he tells us a heartwarming anecdote about Matt. They met at camp and soon, Matt will be a groomsman in Joseph’s wedding. The duo even sends a Christmas card every year—most notably dressing up as Buddy the Elf and sharing a bowl of spaghetti with maple syrup (spoiler: it doesn’t taste good).

As Joseph runs, he says, “Before we get to Matt, a quick note about why I’m running on behalf of Special Olympics. Matt and I love sports. And so do many of my other friends. Donations help provide year-round sports training and competition for more than 20,000 people with intellectual disabilities across Illinois.”

Joseph is the perfect example of inspiration. Not only did he run an entire marathon, but he also found inspiration in his friends who love sports as much as he does.

Leanne, Everett and Joseph are three incredible people who have shown how much strength and perseverance it takes to run a marathon. Each runner is both empowering themselves and their community. Their dedication to the Bank of America Chicago Marathon shows that the people of Chicago have a passion for the city, their neighbors and their personal achievements.

Culture

Gen Xers share 17 nostalgic dishes they ate growing up—and still make for dinner

From sloppy joes to pizza bread, these dishes still slap.

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Image via Reddit

A family enjoys dinner during the 1970s.

Generation X (those born between 1965-1980) grew up eating classic Americana meals. During the 1970s, comfort meals like tuna casserole and salmon roquettes were popular meals.

Gen X also grew up eating some pretty unhinged (but all the more yummy) sandwiches. These meals are steeped in childhood nostalgia.

And to this day, Gen Xers are still fond of their favorite dishes they grew up eating. Together, they discussed on Reddit their most-loved home-cooked dishes that they still whip up, starting with sloppy joes.

Here are 17 iconic Gen X comfort meals to keep in mind the next time you make dinner:

"Breakfast. We will have a 'breakfast for dinner' at least a couple times a month. Yum!" - fadeanddecayed, KddKc

"Pizza bread! My mom would cut Italian bread into pieces, put butter and garlic salt on them, then pour some spaghetti sauce on them, cover with mozzarella cheese, and broil for like ten or fifteen minutes. Super easy and quick to make and so tasty. I'm sure my mom loved that I was so into something that took roughly zero effort for her to make." - hornybutired

"Grilled cheese and soup." - reincarnateme

"Meat loaf. I use 2 pounds ground beef, replace bread crumbs with minute rice, add 1 pkg beef soup flavoring, chop an entire onion for it, and mix BBQ sauce into mixture. Oh, important: do not overmix! Place all ingredients into bowl, then mix quickly 10 or 12 swirls of a large spoon. Grease loaf pan, carefully place mixture in, pat down & bake about an hour. (Extra info: for even better flavor, mix the night before, pat into loaf pan, cover with plastic, put into fridge overnight. Remove from fridge about an hour before baking. BE SURE TO REMOVE PLASTIC WRAP! [Esp. If in Pyrex glass loaf pan])" - jehardt, AbbyM1968

"White guy tacos." - najing_ftw

"Skillet dinner. Kielbasa, bell pepper, onion, spuds in a cast iron pan. One dish. Easy peasy." - UnimportantOutcome67

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"Chicken pot pie or chicken ala king." - sattersnaps

"Fried catfish, greens, and red beans and rice." - User Unknown

"Shepherds pie, technically cottage pie if it’s ground beef. Homemade enchiladas, usually made as a layered casserole instead because I don’t have time to roll them. Pork chops with mashed potatoes and veggies." - XerTrekker

"Fried rice with chicken or pork leftovers." - AlternativeResort181

"Hot hamburgers: hamburger patty open face on Texas toast thickness bread, cover with fries then cover that with brown gravy. Wife's variation is hamburger patty over rice with brown gravy." - EnricoMatassaEsq

"Stuffed peppers. I make it much more easily by cooking it all in one large frying pan 'deconstructed'. Sauté onions garlic and ground beef, add cut up peppers, tomatoes or tomato sauce, sometimes a little spinach, then add separately cooked rice, salt and pepper and serve. It comes together pretty quickly and tastes just as good as stuffing and baking peppers in the oven." - Affectionate-Map2583

"Macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs. Seriously, that’s what I ate tonight." - Dazzling-Walrus9673

"Homemade Stroganoff casserole. Ridiculously easy to make. Ingredients:

1.25-1.5 lbs. Ground Beef
1 each of large white onion, green pepper, and red pepper
1 can mushroom pieces, drained and rinsed
12 oz. Bag of wide egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom soup
16 oz. Sour cream
Worcestershire Sauce
Louisiana Hot Sauce
White or Black Pepper
Panko bread crumbs

To Make: Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Worcestershire, hot sauce, garlic powder, and pepper are all to taste, depending on how much flavor and punch you want it to have. Cook noodles per instructions. Drain. Peel and slice onion (not diced), core and cut peppers into strips Brown meat, onions and peppers along with liberal amount of Worcestershire; garlic, pepper, and hot sauce. Add mushrooms. Cook until meat is fully brown, onions are translucent and peppers are tender. Drain. Combine drained meat, etc. with whole can of soup, half of the sour cream. Gradually add noodles into the mix. Add sour cream as needed to maintain consistency. Add Worcestershire, hot sauce, and pepper to taste. Dump into large, deep Corning dish or whatever. Cover too with bread crumbs. Cover and bake for forty minutes." - CynfullyDelicious

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gen x food

Community

Single people share exactly what they buy at Costco that saves them tons of money

"Honestly, the gas, wine, and rotisserie chicken are enough to make it worth it for me to keep my membership."

costco, costco membership, single, single people, shopping at costco

Image via Wikipedia

Single people share what they buy at Costco.

If you have a family, a Costco membership seems like a no-brainer. When buying in bulk for lots of people, you can save tons of money when shopping at Costco.

But not everyone who has a Costco membership is married with kids—plenty of single people also utilize Costco. While some things don't make sense for singles to stock up on, there are plenty of items (and services) that Costco offers that benefit their wallets.

Single people opened up on Reddit about their Costco shopping lists. Here's exactly what single folks buy regularly from Costco to help save them money.

"I'm single (widowed). Honestly, the gas, wine, and rotisserie chicken are enough to make it worth it for me to keep my membership. But I buy plenty of other things there as well (coffee beans, cheese, butter, soap, misc frozen foods)... The only things I can't buy are produce (can't get through it fast enough) and bulky items (paper towels, toilet paper, etc) because I don't have the storage space. I go 2-3 times a month." - LunaDog_Mom

"The membership cost is offset in protein powder alone for me." - sweetteaspicedcoffee

"A 365 day supply of Claritin almost offsets it on its own." - vapemuscle

"I'm single and not only do I have a Costco membership, I have an executive membership. So many things I like I can either only find at Costco, or are much cheaper per unit/ounce at Costco. For example, I drink a ton of coffee and the powdered Coffeemate creamer is the best price I've ever seen. Another example is the kitchen garbage bags. And then there's the toilet tissue, paper towels, egg bites, etc. When I compare what those things cost at grocery stores, buying them at Costco ends up being a good bit cheaper." - DirtyBirdDawg

"Yes. I buy bulk meat and portion and freeze it. My yogurts are so much cheaper at Costco. There also some other foods I buy consistently. The biggest thing I buy at Costco is clothes. A major of my winter gear is from Costco. I buy some work clothes there too because my job can be dirty and gross and I’m not going to spend a ton of money on clothing that going to get stained and ruined." - MeatScience1

"I join for a year, every third year. Or whenever I run out of trash bags and paper towels." - MoreFarmer4277

"Me and I just got my merino wool socks." - AdExternal964

"All the time. Heck, sometimes I head to Costco just to get an hour of walking in. And on the way out, grab a hotdog. The trick is to approach purchasing foodstuff with discipline. Mostly for frozen, canned, or freezable stuff. Otherwise I plan meals around what I'm getting. Especially for the ready-made stuff like meatloaf, stuffed peppers, etc." - Idiot_Esq

"Yeah - that chicken taco tray is really good too. staple for Friday nights around my home." - geb999

"I'm single and live in California. The prices of paper towels will forever secure my membership. Plus I get my appliances from there and tires." - LaCroixWeekend

"I am a single female. I buy toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, maxi pads, makeup wipes, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, fabric softener, soap, body wash, frozen wild fish and shrimp, quinoa, canned wild salmon, Greek yogurt, Brussels sprouts, frozen berries and vegetables, turkey breast, protein shakes, coffee, Reynolds wrap, crackers, medicine and clothing there. ETA: totally forgot trash bags and olive oil!" - hurtingheart4me

Single woman here. Every 1-2 weeks: gas, organic baby spinach, Greek yogurt, eggs, organic bananas, cottage cheese Monthly: organic carrots, coastal cheddar cheese, hummus, unsweetened almond milk, frozen fruit (organic blueberries, organic mango, dark cherries), chicken cilantro mini wontons, canned tuna. Quarterly: probiotics, protein bars, oatmeal. Yearly: aluminum foil/plastic wrap/plastic baggies, chia and hemp seeds, spices/better than bouillon, olive oil, honey, microwave popcorn. One-off purchases: clothes, electronics (bought my laptop, mesh WiFi, TV, paper shredder, external hard drive, printer etc from them), kitchen equipment (Teflon pans, vitamix, dishwasher), linens (bedding, towels), rotisserie chicken and Mac n cheese/quiches and bagged salad (if family is coming over), flowers, glasses, windshield wiper blades, birthday/celebration cakes. Only buy on sale: babybel, laughing cow, zebra popcorn, dishwasher tabs, laundry detergent. Most of my grocery shopping is done at grocery stores since they have better deals and better quality on most produce or things like peanut butter. A big Costco is only about 15 minutes away and near where I workout, so it’s easy to get there frequently and during off-peak hours." - aknomnoms

"A hot dog, soda and slice of pizza for $3.50." - Miserable-Ship-9972

What experts say single people should buy at Costco

Single people can still score big deals at Costco. Here's what the experts say are the best things single people should utilize:

Allergy medication

"Allergy sufferers should consider buying the Kirkland Signature Aller-Tec medicine which includes a years worth of allergy relief for one person for only $14.99," Melissa Cid, consumer savings expert for MySavings.com, tells Upworthy. "You just have to buy a bottle one time per year and not think about it again. You will save up to 60% off compared to drugstore and grocery store prices which are smaller bottles that you would have to buy more frequently."

Salad kits

"In the refrigerated produce section, Costco’s salad kits are a single person’s secret weapon," Kristen Markel, founder of Warehouse Wanderer, a blog dedicated to Costco shopping strategies, tells Upworthy. "They’re fresh, flavorful, and perfectly portioned, so you’re not wasting ingredients. Add some rotisserie chicken or chickpeas, and you’ve got a balanced meal in minutes. The flavor options rotate often, keeping weekday lunches and quick dinners interesting."

Frozen shrimp

"The frozen food section is full of single-friendly staples, and Kirkland Signature Gulf Shrimp is one of my top picks," says Markel. "It cooks quickly, can be used in countless meals, and the resealable bag makes it easy to take just what you need. Buying shrimp in bulk this way costs far less than frequent takeout or grocery store portions."

Costco Travel

"Besides the obvious reason that Costco’s massive buying power leads to incredible deals, booking your vacations through Costco Travel is a smart move for singles," Markel shares. "Prices often include extras like resort credits or free upgrades that you won’t find elsewhere. And if you’re an Executive Member, you’ll earn 2% back on your purchases—even on travel—which adds up fast."

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single people costco

Education

Social skills expert shares 3 'magic phrases' that make you more likable

Sometimes, we need to overcommunicate how we feel about others.

vanessa van edwards, likability, communications skills, people skills, people laughing, good advice

via Press Release and Canva/Photos

Vanessa Van Edwards and people at a party.

A familiar misstep people make when trying to be likable is trying to impress others. They want to show they are funny, intelligent, and a great storyteller. They think being the life of the party is the road to likability. However, study after study shows that it’s a lot easier to be likable. All you have to do is show interest in others. To put it simply: If you like people, you will become more likable.

There’s a slight wrinkle in the notion that liking more people makes you more likable. Many people you like aren’t sure that you like them. The psychological phenomenon known as signal amplification bias says it best. We tend to overestimate how clearly we broadcast our feelings and intentions towards others. So, the person we like and who likes us may not know the feeling is mutual.

“We think our signals are obvious,” Vanessa Van Edwards told Steve Bartlett on the Diary of a CEO podcast. “If we like someone or if we’re having a good time, we think, ‘Oh, they for sure know it.’ They don’t.” Van Edwards is a communications expert and the author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People.

To help people clearly communicate their feelings, Van Edwards suggests three “magic phrases” to show you care. Check out the video below.

Phrase 1: ‘I was just thinking of you’

“You think of a lot of people in your life all the time,” she said. “If you are thinking of someone and you can text them: ‘I was just thinking of you, how are you?’ I was just thinking of you, how’d that project go?’ was just thinking of you. It has been a while since we talked.’ You see a movie, you see a documentary, you see a matcha latte, you see a mug, you see a ceramic candle, and you’re like, ‘Ah, this made me think of you,’” Van Edwards said. “My text messages, my conversations, are full of actual moments where I was triggered to think of that person, actually,” she said, noting the importance of being genuine. “If you don’t think of someone, they’re not a person you need to have in your life.”

Phrase 2: ‘You’re always so …’

"So if you're with someone and you're impressed by them or they're interesting or they're funny, say, 'You always make me laugh. You’re always so interesting,’ or ‘You’re always so great in interviews.' Giving them a label that is a positive label is the best gift you can give someone, because it's fighting that signal amplification bias,” she continued.

Phrase 3: ‘Last time we talked, you mentioned …’

“We are so honored when we get brain space—that you remembered and you’re going to bring it up,” she said. “And you specifically bring up something that they lit up with, something they were like, ‘Ah, it was great, it was exciting, it was wonderful.’”

If studies show the more you like other people, the more likable you become, Van Edwards has the next logical step in becoming more likable. She makes it clear that, due to signal amplification bias, many people you like may not even know it. When we employ her three ways to be more likeable, though, we can let people know we like them without making them feel uncomfortable, thus establishing bond to build on.

From Your Site Articles

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Pets

People honor their four-legged friends on 'Day of the Dead for pets' and it's absolutely soul-stirring

"The rainbow bridge glows brighter than ever forming a gentle path of light."

pets, day of the dead, mexican tradition, ofrenda, love

Photo Credit: Larry Leal

Person makes his ofrenda to celebrate pets who have passed away.

Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, has always been one of Mexico's most beautifully soulful traditions. On November 1st and 2nd, people honor their loved ones who have passed on from this life by setting up altars with "offerings" (or ofrendas) presenting a display of their favorite things. (For example, this year for my father, I will light a candle and display Oreos, a can of sardines, a Dodgers baseball playing card, and a Neil Diamond record.)

National Geographic Kids explains, "Day of the Dead combines the ancient Aztec custom of celebrating ancestors with All Souls' Day, a holiday that Spanish invaders brought to Mexico starting in the early 1500s."

It is a lovely offering and a wonderful way to not only remember our loved ones who are no longer here, but to open a symbolic portal to a space where, living or dead, we can all rejoice together—at least for a day.

October 27th was recently added as the Día de los Muertos specifically for pets who have crossed over that rainbow bridge. Dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, salamanders—no matter what the loved animal was, its soul matters too. In one heartwarming video, a person explains that the animals are the first to make the journey back to see us.

Reporter Nadia Cantú notes in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that, in 2019, it was a pet funeral home (Funeral Pet) who suggested pets have a designated day of remembrance. Many animal lovers took to the idea and have been setting up altars ever since (though many have been doing this for centuries).

If you'd like to take part, find a corner of your home that your pet especially loved to hang out in. This is where you can gather everything that represents this beloved pet on it's own ofrenda. Of course, the space can be shared with your offerings for human loved ones.

Cantú breaks down what different elements of this spiritual offering will do. Candles are key, she says, as "they represent the light that guides the soul back home."

Instagrammer @Finelythegoldenbear shares this lovely sentiment: "It's said that on this night the rainbow bridge glows brighter than ever forming a gentle path of light that stretches all the way to the hearts that miss them most."

Marigolds, often known in Spanish as cempasúchil, are also traditionally part of this offering. A piece in The Desert Botanical explains the meaning for this flower: "The celebration traces back to pre-Hispanic Aztec rituals tied to the goddess Mictecacihuatl, or the Lady of the Dead. The story goes that Mictecacihuatl allowed spirits to travel back to Earth to reconnect with their family members. The fragrance, which is a musky smell from marigolds, is said to lead souls from their burial place to their family homes. Throughout the years, this tradition adopted Roman Catholic aspects from Spaniards who conquered Mexico."

They also mention that other flowers, including "chrysanthemums, cockscombs, or gladiolas," are used in these altars, but marigolds—with their inviting warm color—are the most meaningful.

From there, one would put their pet's favorite, well, everything: food, treats, toys, or a bowl of water as a "symbol of purity and rest after their long spiritual journey." And of course, a photo of the pet (noting that if you don't have one, you can simply draw a picture or write their name).

My friend Larry Leal said of his altar, "There's ashes and pictures. And water because they are thirsty when they come. Plus, their favorite snacks!"

For my beautiful dogs making that trek across the bridge, I will put out blankets, their favorite squeaky toys, and, specifically for my beagle—a roll of toilet paper, as it was his favorite thing to eat.

Should you wish to celebrate, maybe take a stroll through the park on this day. Perhaps your wonderful pet, having made the long journey back to see you, might just be trotting right beside you.

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day of the dead

Learning

Why Japanese is far easier to learn than English, with one ‘notable’ exception

Phonetically and grammatically, Japanese is quite consistent and logical.

Japanese language, nihongo, hiragana, katakana, kanji

Photo credit: Canva

Japanese would be really easy to read and write if it just had this one "alphabet."

When I had to choose a foreign language to study in high school, my choices were Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. Despite my parents' encouragement to study Spanish, (as it would arguably be the most useful where we lived), I was much more intrigued by the idea—and the challenge—of learning Japanese.

I ended up studying Japanese for four years and then teaching English in Japan for a year after college. Teaching English and studying Japanese gave me a keen appreciation for how hard English is to learn compared to Japanese. English is famously full of inconsistent spellings, exceptions to grammar and spelling rules, and other things that don't makes sense. Japanese, I was pleased to find, is actually quite consistent and logical both phonetically and grammatically. There are some exceptions, of course, and you have to get used to learning formal and informal ways of speaking, but it's quite straightforward compared to English.

japanese, hiragana, katakana, language learning, japanese characters Japanese has two phonetic alphabets.Photo credit: Canva

In fact, if Japanese were only written phonetically, it would be a pretty easy language to learn, even with 46 characters in its "alphabet." But the writing of Japanese isn't limited to just 46 characters, which is the one thing that makes it exceptionally difficult.

In fact, as a video from NativLang explains, Japanese may just be the hardest writing system in the world. It's not the 46-character alphabet (which is actually a syllabary, which I'll get to in a moment). It's not even the fact that there are actually two 46-character alphabets. It's the fact that written Japanese is a mix of those two alphabets, so 92 syllabic characters to memorize, plus thousands of Chinese characters. And the Chinese characters aren't phonetic, so you just have to memorize what they are, how to write them, what they mean, and how they're pronounced in Japanese (which depends on how they're used and combined).

- YouTube youtu.be

Sound confusing? It is. Here's a more thorough breakdown.

The two alphabets (which are actually syllabaries because the characters aren't really letters that represent phonemes but rather symbols that represent syllables that combine phonemes, like "ka" or "fu" or "shi") are called hiragana and katakana. Both hiragana and katakana include the exact same 46 syllables, but hiragana is used for Japanese words, while katakana is used for words imported from other languages (and a few other contexts, like scientific names and onomatopoeia). This would be the equivalent of Americans using a separate-but-parallel alphabet made up of entirely different letters to write words like "ballet" or "teriyaki" or "blintz" since they aren't English words. You get used to it pretty quickly when learning Japanese, but it's not a concept we have in English at all.

If hiragana and katakana were all you had to learn to read and write Japanese, that would pose somewhat of a challenge, but it would still be easier to read and write than English. Once you know how the characters are pronounced and a few little rules about how pronunciations are tweaked, it's easy to read and write using these syllabaries. Even if you had no idea what you were saying, you could read a Japanese children's book that uses hiragana and katakana out loud and sound totally fluent. The pronunciations are pretty much always exactly as written.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

But that's not how Japanese writing works beyond kindergarten. Most of what you see in written Japanese are actually Chinese characters called kanji. The tricky thing about kanji is that 1) the characters are much more complex than hiragana and katakana, and 2) they aren't symbols that represent syllables, but rather pictures that represent words or ideas. There's no phonetic element to them as written—you have to know what they mean and then apply the Japanese pronunciation to them based on understanding their meaning in context. This is complicated by the fact that two kanji separately mean something different when they are put together. And did I mention there are upwards of 50,000 possible kanji characters?

Don't worry—to read and write fluently in Japanese, you don't have memorize tens of thousands of Chinese characters. I remember someone in Japan telling me that you "only" need to know around 2,000 kanji characters to read a standard Japanese newspaper. So, you can memorize only 92 hiragana and katakana symbols plus 2,000 characters, and you're golden.

Oh, and there are actually four different kinds of kanji, briefly explained here:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

People who've studied Japanese weighed in on the comments of NativLang's video, humorously lamenting the challenge of learning kanji:

"Kanji is for people who want to learn something new every day... for the rest of their lives," wrote one person.

"Chinese: makes complicated writing system. China, Korea, Vietnam: changes it to be simple. Japan: Makes it even more complicated," added another.

"I'm Japanese, but some Japanese actually can't write more than 2,000 kanjis," shared another. "And we can't also read many words that are made of over 2 kanjis. Because there are many words in Japanese. However we can guess the meaning of some words. So you should remember the meanings of them and be able to write about 1,000 kanjis. It's also native level. Thank you for studying Japanese."

I will say, learning kanji does get easier and in some ways it's like learning "sight words" in English. Then again, I never got close to writing 1,000 of them. But throw in the fact that Japanese is usually written vertically, and from right to left, and there are no spaces in between words…yeah. It's a fascinating challenge. So, if you're interested in learning Japanese, it's wise to focus on spoken Japanese and the two kana syllabaries (since they help with understanding Japanese pronunciation) and just slowly chip away at the kanji, knowing it's going to be an ultramarathon and definitely not a sprint.

From Your Site Articles

learning

Gay People Made A Straight Man Cry With Their Response To The Question 'Is Being Gay A Choice?'

34 broken bones, a mural, and Buddy the Elf—what these three things have in common

"I never thought I’d run again. But against the odds, here I am."

Meet Leanne: Running after 34 Bone Fractures

Meet Everett: Running to Inspire Through Art

Meet Joseph: Running on Behalf of Special Olympics

Gen Xers share 17 nostalgic dishes they ate growing up—and still make for dinner

From sloppy joes to pizza bread, these dishes still slap.

Single people share exactly what they buy at Costco that saves them tons of money

"Honestly, the gas, wine, and rotisserie chicken are enough to make it worth it for me to keep my membership."

What experts say single people should buy at Costco

Allergy medication

Salad kits

Frozen shrimp

Costco Travel

Phrase 1: ‘I was just thinking of you’

Phrase 2: ‘You’re always so …’

Phrase 3: ‘Last time we talked, you mentioned …’

People honor their four-legged friends on 'Day of the Dead for pets' and it's absolutely soul-stirring

"The rainbow bridge glows brighter than ever forming a gentle path of light."

Why Japanese is far easier to learn than English, with one ‘notable’ exception

Phonetically and grammatically, Japanese is quite consistent and logical.

It's not brains or talent. Expert says high achievers have two traits anyone can learn.

Couple retires to live on cruise ships because it's roughly half the cost of a nursing home

11 'unspoken rules' cats expect their humans to know and follow

17 of the funniest finalists in the 2025 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Gen Xers and Boomers share ‘grimy’ parts of the 70s they were happy to leave behind

Woman gets shamed at CVS for 'son's' unusual name. The reality has people rolling.