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Why JLPT N2 learners mix up 漸く (ようやく, “gradually, finally, hardly”) and クリーニング (クリーニング, “cleaning, dry cleaning, laundry service”).
Both involve a 'waiting period.' 漸く (youyaku) is the 'finally' felt after a long wait, which is similar to the patience required when waiting for items to be returned from the クリーニング (cleaning) service.
On JLPT N2, this pair shows up as a vocabulary meaning question. You see one word and pick its English equivalent from four options — one of which will be the other word in this pair, chosen as a distractor precisely because of the overlap.
Reading the explanation is step one. Targeted practice is what actually moves a confusion pair out of your weak list. Free, no signup needed to try.
Practice N2 confusion pairsSpot a mistake in this explanation? Email us. Explanations are AI-generated and human-reviewed; corrections welcome.