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The story
An article from Josei Jishin claiming that more children can’t recognize that grammatically correct but nonsensical sentences — like “The plane is made of dogs” or “The window sang in a loud voice” — are actually absurd has become a hot topic on 5ch’s News Flash+ board. The article blames the trend on kids watching short-form videos on their phones, and also criticizes the Ministry of Education for its slow response. Thread replies ranged from questioning whether reading comprehension is even necessary, to joke replies offering up similar example sentences, while others pushed back with “isn’t the question itself just badly made?” — opinions were split.
The Bizarre Phenomenon of Kids Who Can’t Even Solve “The Plane Is Made of Dogs”… Smartphone Videos and the Ministry of Education’s Floundering Response Are Fueling Children’s “Declining Reading Comprehension” | Josei Jishin
Published: 2026/10/22 17:00 Last updated: 2026/10/22 17:02 Josei Jishin Editorial Dept.
“The window sang in a loud voice”
Source: jisin.jp / Original article here
What people said
People with no reading comprehension are infuriating — you just can't get through to them.
Some people have fine reading comprehension but still can't get through to others, because they're bad at processing information by ear… guess that's me
You need it if you're going to live a life involving other people; not necessary if you're a hikikomori loner (a reclusive shut-in)
This one, lol
Already 9 years ago now
There's no way kids raised addicted to phones since childhood are going to turn out normal.
The government is so digitally illiterate there's no way they'd even notice the harm smartphones cause.
there's also a chance the person being asked just froze on the word "equal."
Reading comprehension isn't that simple.
Someone actually asked me this once, so I used calculus to divide it exactly into three equal parts with two parallel lines.
Re: #8
Is that the one where someone had their pet cat stuffed?
Thought the same thing, lol
Feels like the kind of expression you'd find in a novel or something.
Actually, I feel like the original English test question was designed as exactly that kind of trick.
Wasn't the assignment to "write a sentence using atakamo [as if]"?
That's a genius one.
No way.
What kind of image are you even supposed to picture from a singing window?
Nah, I think you should read a book or two.
Or maybe watch a Disney movie.
A happy household.
The sound of family laughter drifting in through the window while they eat dinner.
This country's just going to keep declining.
It makes sense grammatically, it's just a weird story.
If anything, whoever wrote this question doesn't understand how kids think.
Right, it does make grammatical sense.
If the question asked "is this realistic?" kids would answer "no," but if it asks "does this make sense?" then some kids are bound to think "well, it does make sense — the grammar's correct" and answer that way instead.
So when's the sequel, "The Science of Catfights," coming out?
My blood is iron and my heart is glass.
Undefeated through countless battlefields,
Never once in retreat,
Nor once in victory.
The wielder stands here, alone.
On a hill of swords, I forge iron —
so then, my life needs no meaning.
This body was made of infinite swords. (a deliberately scrambled parody of the famous "Unlimited Blade Works" chant from Fate/stay night)
It's not like it's a lump of golden iron.
"Ai-amu-za-bohn-obu-mai-sōdo" (a garbled phonetic spelling of "I am the bone of my sword," the English original of that same Fate/stay night chant)
Grammatically there's nothing wrong with it, but something about it is just off.
If you can't tell a table from a pencil, that's a little concerning cognitively, lol
There was one!
Makes you wonder if there's really someone out there who can't tell just by looking, lol
Maybe it's kind of cute.
Or wait, maybe it's kind of gross.
Tough call.
Somehow that's pretty great, lol
That corgi looks like it's about to get burnt to a crisp.
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Whether that makes sense or not depends entirely on who's saying it.
https://type.jp/st/feature/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/fukuyama.jpg
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Questions like “the plane is made of dogs” or “the window sang in a loud voice” belong to a type of reading-comprehension test designed to measure whether someone can recognize that a sentence is grammatically correct but describes something impossible in reality — something said to be easy to miss if you’re just skimming for individual words instead of reading for meaning. The article links this to the rise of short-form video consumption on smartphones and faults the Ministry of Education for its slow response, but the thread raised another perspective too. Some pointed out (see replies 85 and 100) that “is it realistic?” and “is it grammatically coherent?” are two different standards, and that if a question’s intent is ambiguous, it’s no surprise some kids answer something other than “no.” In other words, before jumping to the conclusion that “children’s reading comprehension is declining,” it’s worth noting that 5ch users also shared the view that the design of the survey questions themselves deserves scrutiny.
*This article is composed as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “The Bizarre Phenomenon of Kids Who Can’t Even Solve “The Plane Is Made of Dogs”… Smartphone Videos and the Ministry of Education’s Floundering Response Are Fueling Children’s “Declining Reading Comprehension”.”
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