Search pages and navigate
Why JLPT N3 learners mix up 協調 (きょうちょう, “co-operation, conciliation, harmony”) and まとまる (まとまる, “to be collected, to be settled, to be in order”).
Both involve group unity. 協調 (using 協 for cooperation) is the act of working together harmoniously, while まとまる describes the resulting state where a group or plan successfully "comes together" or settles.
On JLPT N3, 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 N3 confusion pairsSpot a mistake in this explanation? Email us. Explanations are AI-generated and human-reviewed; corrections welcome.