Japanese Vocabulary for Chores and Daily Routines

Daily routines are useful topics for Japanese practice. The table gives common expressions for chores and everyday activities; learn the particles with each verb.

掃除する (sōji suru) commonly means “clean.” 綺麗にする (kirei ni suru) means “make clean/neat/beautiful,” depending on context. 清掃する (seisō suru) is often more formal or associated with organized cleaning. These are differences in usage, rather than a simple cultural barrier to translation.

When translated directly to English, this would always be closer to the phrase “make (it) beautiful, pure or spotless”. True, we definitely sometimes use the term to refer to “cleaning”, but not as commonly as the Japanese people use the term “kirei ni suru” in everyday life. 

The table includes both nouns that combine with する and complete verb phrases.

Also, keep in mind that these are only the most commonly used terms, as you can get more specific by using more verbs and further adding different action terminologies.

Words such as 勉強, 洗濯 and 買い物 are nouns. Adding する makes a verb phrase: 勉強する, 洗濯する and 買い物する. を is also possible in many constructions, such as 勉強をする; it is not universally forbidden. A noun can be used directly in 日本語の勉強 (nihongo no benkyō), “studying Japanese.”

Reversely, you can structure the sentence using these terms directly when referring to the action of its meaning. For example, “nihongo no benkyou” (日本語の勉強, “The study of Japanese/Japanese studies”)