Learn Hardcore Japanese: megane wo kakeru to, kokuban no mozi no miekata ga hakkiri simasu. - When I put on my glasses, the way the letters on the blackboard look becomes clear.

眼鏡をかけると means “when/whenever I put on my glasses” or “if I put on my glasses”.
This と is used when one action automatically leads to another result, almost like a rule or natural consequence.

So the pattern is:

[plain form verb] + と、[result]
Example: 春になると、暖かくなります。 – “When it becomes spring, it gets warm.”

It’s different from “and” (AとB) which connects two nouns, like 犬と猫 (“dogs and cats”).

Why is it かける and not かけたら in 眼鏡をかけると? Aren’t both “when I put on (glasses)”?

Both forms can be translated as “when,” but the nuance is different.

眼鏡をかけると
→ “Whenever I put on my glasses, (as a rule) … happens.”
→ Feels like a general, automatic result.
眼鏡をかけたら
→ “When I put on my glasses (on that occasion) … happened / will happen.”
→ More like a specific occasion or condition, not necessarily a general rule.

In this sentence, the speaker is talking about a general tendency (“When I wear my glasses, the letters become clear”), so と is very natural.

Why is it 眼鏡をかける and not 眼鏡にかける? I thought you “put something on something” with に.

In Japanese, the standard expression is:

眼鏡をかける (めがねをかける) – “to put on / wear glasses.”

Here:

眼鏡 is the direct object of the verb かける, so it takes を.
You’re not grammatically saying “put (glasses) on (your face)” – the “on (your face)” part is understood and not expressed.

This is similar to:

帽子をかぶる – “to put on a hat”
指輪をはめる – “to put on a ring”

They all use を, not に.

What exactly does 見え方 (みえかた) mean? How is it different from just 見える?

見え方 is a noun formed from the verb 見える (“to be visible / to appear”) and 方 (“way / manner”).

見える – “to be seen, to appear, to be visible”
見え方 – “the way (something) looks / the way it appears / how it is seen”

So:

黒板の文字が見える – “I can see the letters on the blackboard.”
黒板の文字の見え方 – “the way the letters on the blackboard look / their appearance (to me).”

In this sentence, 見え方がはっきりします literally means “the way they look becomes clear.”

Why do we have two の in 黒板の文字の見え方? How is that structured?

Break it down step by step:

黒板の文字
- 黒板 = blackboard
- 黒板の文字 = “the writing/characters on the blackboard”
文字の見え方
- 文字 = characters / writing
- 文字の見え方 = “the way the characters look / how the characters appear”

Put them together:

黒板の文字の見え方
= “the way the writing on the blackboard looks”

So the structure is:

[黒板] の [文字] の [見え方]
“the appearance (見え方) of the letters (文字) of the blackboard (黒板)”

Multiple の in a row like this are normal in Japanese.

Why is it 見え方が and not 見え方は? What’s the role of が here?

Here 見え方 is the subject of the verb はっきりします (“become clear”), so it takes が.

見え方がはっきりします
= “The way (they) look becomes clear.”

が is typically used to:

mark the subject of an intransitive verb (something changes, happens, exists)
introduce new or important information in the sentence.

You could say 見え方ははっきりします in some contexts, but that would emphasize 見え方 as a topic (e.g., contrasting it with something else: “As for how they look, that is clear”).
In a neutral, descriptive sentence like this, が is the natural choice.

What does はっきりします mean, and why is it します and not something like です?

はっきり means “clear(ly)” – it can function as an adverb or a kind of adverbial noun.

はっきりする = “to become clear,” “to be clear,” “to be distinct.”

In this sentence:

見え方がはっきりします
literally: “The way (they) look does ‘clarity’ / becomes clear.”

We use する because はっきり is behaving like something that takes する to form a verb (similar to many する-verbs / -する expressions).

です is a copula (like “is/am/are”) and wouldn’t express the change (“become clear”) the same way.
はっきりです is not natural; はっきりしています or はっきりします is.

Why is the verb in polite present (はっきりします) and not past (はっきりしました)?

The non-past polite form (します) in Japanese often expresses:

a general fact or tendency
something that happens whenever the condition is met.

Here it means:

“When I put on my glasses, (in general) the way the letters look becomes clear.”

If you said はっきりしました, you’d be talking about:

a specific past event, like “When I put on my glasses (just now / that time), the way the letters looked became clear.”

Given the と conditional (which often implies a general, automatic result), the non-past します fits well.

Could I say 黒板の文字がはっきり見えます instead? What’s the difference from 文字の見え方がはっきりします?

Yes, 黒板の文字がはっきり見えます is perfectly natural and common.

黒板の文字がはっきり見えます。
= “I can see the letters on the blackboard clearly.”
(Focuses on my seeing being clear.)
黒板の文字の見え方がはっきりします。
= “The way the letters on the blackboard look becomes clear.”
(Focuses on the appearance itself becoming clear.)

The meaning in practice is very similar, but:

はっきり見えます talks about the act/state of seeing.
見え方がはっきりします talks about the quality/appearance of what is seen.

Both are fine; the original is just a bit more “nouny” and slightly more formal/neutral sounding.

Who is the subject in this sentence? Where is “I” or “you”?

Japanese often omits the subject when it’s clear from context.

In this sentence:

(私は / 僕は / 私の目には) 眼鏡をかけると、黒板の文字の見え方がはっきりします。

The understood subject is something like “I” (or possibly “you” in a generic sense), but it’s not said because:

it’s obvious from the situation (e.g., you’re talking about your own eyesight),
Japanese prefers dropping pronouns when they’re not needed.

So a natural English translation would be:

“When I put on my glasses, the writing on the blackboard becomes clear.”

Even though “I” isn’t actually in the Japanese sentence.

Is there any difference between 眼鏡 and メガネ?

They mean the same thing: glasses.

眼鏡 (めがね) – kanji form; often used in writing, textbooks, formal materials.
メガネ – katakana form; very common in everyday writing, ads, casual text, etc.

In spoken Japanese, the pronunciation is the same; choosing 眼鏡 or メガネ is mostly a matter of style and context, not meaning.