N3 · 40 words
The environment
Pollution, resources, recycling and the climate, and what people do about them.
Two kinds of word meet here. The scientific ones are kanji compounds that read like a textbook — 温暖化, 二酸化炭素 — and are easier than they look once the single kanji are known. The everyday ones come from rubbish day: in Japan household waste is sorted by type, and 分別, 燃える and ペットボトル are words every resident needs in the first week, long before the climate is discussed.
The words
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Verb (2)
守るto protect; to keep (a rule, a promise)VerbN4
美しい海を守るために、何ができるだろう。What can we do to protect the beautiful sea?
減らすto reduce; to cut down onVerbN3
レジ袋を使わないで、ゴミを減らしています。I cut down on rubbish by not using plastic carrier bags.
Transitive: you 減らす something, and it 減る by itself.
This list belongs to Nature, weather and the land — ten lists and 401 words that can also be practised as a whole.
Practise this list
Multiple choice and gaps, drawn from exactly these 40 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.