Japanese Resources
Learning resources I have collected over the years. Categorized, and with comments or mini-reviews.
I’ve used almost all of these at least a little throughout my studies. Share the link to this content to anyone who may find this useful!
DISCLAIMER: I won’t claim these are definitive, top resources. I may praise some of them but there could be better sites out there. These are simply what I’ve come across and have indeed found useful and worth keeping.
PLEASE REPORT BROKEN LINKS!
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General Resources & Linguistics
hisnibs.com: Uranus 2018 Multifunction Pen – Affordable pen, one side ballpoint, the other foam brush. Not the exact feel of authentic calligraphy, but a great portable option that can give great results.
Wikipedia: Phonetic Correspondences Between Modern Chinese & On-yomi – The relationships between Japanese and Chinese pronunciations of Chinese Characters.
Debunked: “OMG Japanese has Three Writing Systems! – Points out the misconception of 3 writing systems. There is only ONE writing system for Japanese. The three that people usually point out are actually character sets – English uses two.
How-To-Learn-Any-Language.com Forums: Mandarin or Not Mandarin? – Discussion on Kanji readings, Chinese readings, due to a question on learning Chinese when the person has already started Japanese.
The Kanji Hanzi Hub – A (no-longer updated) blog on Kanji / Hanzi. Not a lot on here, but has a few interesting posts that compare Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese characters, and some character break downs.
Wa-Pedia.com – Various articles on Japanese culture. I probably found a few good ones so as to decide to keep the link.
Writing & Pronunciation
Japanese pronunciation – Some general but crucial hints to Japanese pronunciation. Note: Japanese DOES have intonation (called pitch accent), but it is merely up and down (2 tones), and she does mention that for Japanese (a-ME vs A-me). English doesn’t have the strict tones, but it is a “stress-timed language” and so words have stress / accents (which tend to also have a higher tone). She confuses the two concepts. English has no official tone / pitch accent, but it has stress. Japanese does have tone / pitch accent, but no stress. Regardless, her advice on keeping things very flat is good – as is the rest of her advice.
The Kanji SITE: JLPT Kanji – JLPT Kanji Lists. Ad-ridden, but may be helpful. Especially nice is that the vocabulary is shown as pictures that change to roumaji when you hover the mouse over each Kanji.
Wikibooks.org – Japanese Pitch Accent – Brief explanation on pitch accent patterns.
Against Marking Accent Locations in Japanese Textbooks – A paper discussing usefulness of pitch patterns in dictionaries, serves to explain the nature of its manifestation.
Pitch Accent in Japanese – A relatively thorough overview of pitch accent.
Hiragana42 eBook – Free eBook to learn Kana through visual mnemonics. Not bad, but there are a few that are quite a stretch…or plain weird. Don’t forget; if you don’t like a mnemonic, make up your own.
www.aeriagloris.com/LearnJapanese – Simple quiz to test your knowledge of kana. No sound, but I recommend it because you can choose to test on partial sets or the FULL set of kana!
Dictionaries
General
Goo Jisho: Japanese <> English <> Chinese Dictionary – has pitch accent but the site is all in Japanese.
“has handwriting input and sound for the entry. Known for their Chinese dictionary.”
Kanji
KanjiNetworks.com: Online Japanese Chinese Kanji Character Dictionary – Best etymological dictionary.
Kanji Radicals – Radical list at a professors page at New Mexico Tech. Similar lists should be easy to find; maybe it’s simple organization and look is why I saved this one in particular.
This online store of “Cool Japan Gifts / Traditional Arts & Crafts” has my favorite Kanji dictionary. Has sounds for most readings, as well as many examples, that usually seem to fit with the various readings.
Verb dictionaries
SayInJapanese: Has lists of verbs and their conjugations. The neat thing is that you can look at the plain listing of conjugations, or you can click the roman numeral and see the same thing briefly explained in English. For example: “Polite: 会います(aimasu)” vs “it can be converted to 会います(aimasu) for the polite form. To turn it into its negative form…”
The Ultra Handy Japanese Verb Conjugator – Should be first Google results for “Japanese conjugator.” Type in the verb and it will give you the table of conjugations. Neat, simple, works. Only annoyance: you MUST type roumaji / latin alphabet.
Apps
Takoboto (iOS, Android, Windows Store, Kindle): Since the Tangorin app is gone (for Android at least), I’ve switched to this one. It actually seems a LOT like Tangorin (probably using the same dictionary databases) so I’m happy and don’t miss Tangorin, so the same info applies:
(also a Kanji dictionary) has example sentences; will say if verb is godan or ichidan)
Structured Lessons / Courses
Takanori Tomita’s Japanese Lessons on Youtube – Some good basic video lessons for beginners. Don’t remember much else; will check them out again, then update this description.
Grammar
Tim Sensei’s Corner is my top recommendation for learning Japanese grammar. It’s a website with articles that teach Japanese grammar (and a little more, such as numbers), most notably though a set of over 60 lessons on verbs:
Tim Sensei’s Corner: Japanese verbs – Teaches the different verb forms but goes beyond that by teaching related grammar in relatively short but clear lessons. Looks excellent; you’ll learn a lot if you go through all 60-ish of them. While it may sound like a lot, they are on verb conjugations as well as constructions. In other words, not only “Here’s how to do the past tense,” but also “Here’s how adding “koto ga aru?” makes “Have you…before?” Quite useful stuff.
Random, Unstructured Lessons
Here, comments: yes. Reviews: not so much They’re here because I approve.
Yahoo! Answers: How do you say “I’m sorry for replying so late” in Japanese? – apologizing for late reply
How to Apologize in Japanese – 4 Common Ways to apologize in formal / polite speech. Not much of a lesson or explanation, but make sure you know these!
Hararie-japan-tokyo-tokyo.com: Different Ways to Say I’m Sorry – Apologizing (Dead link; will keep in case it returns)
How to say, “I Think So…” in Japanese – A pretty well-written lesson on “I think that…” as well as “Someone says that…” constructions.
Telling the Time in Japanese -A quick reference on how to tell time. Part II
Grammar
Start Learning Japanese on ‘About.com’ – Kudasai vs onegaishimasu
Difference between 【する】 and 【やる】 – Difference between suru and yaru
Japanese grammar practice for “after verbing” – C0nstructing sentences such as “I think I’ll sleep after reading a book.”
Japanese Grammar – A collection of articles on basic concepts of Japanese grammar .
Small Assistance in Learning Japanese – requests (as as “could you __ for me?”) using kureru.
E-mail in Japanese to teacher? on ‘Yahoo! Answers’ – A person posts to confirm his email format. I wouldn’t base anything completely off this, but you may want to start here. I have little or nothing else better at the moment.
Quick-How-To for Japanese Adjective Conjugation – Adjective conjugation; includes the special conjugation of ii.
http://www.studyjapanese.org/content/view/184/49 – こ・そ・あ・ど – Systems of Directional Words
JapanesePod101.com: Conjunctions – Discussion on conjunctions, primarily those with the sense of “because” or “since,” but includes a list of conjugations you may want to know.
http://japanese.about.com/blqow26.htm – goro vs gurai (goro = about a specific time; gurai = about a length of time)
Sentence Starter Pack 1 – Just some sets of example sentences (3 of them). Might be worth taking a quick look at. First one is based on different words, the 2nd is based on the word for danger / dangerous, and the 3rd is on the word love.
The difference between ‘sugoi’ and ‘sugoku’ on WordReference Forum – sugoku/sugoi, use as adverb vs. adjective
Comparisons in Japanese (Review Post 1) 日本語の練習 – comparisons: A more than B; which more, A or B
Using 「方」 and 「よる」 – comparisons – X is more/better; A more than B; X hou ga; depending on A; según X.
Japanese Comparisons – comparisons using hou ga, hodo, and ichiban
Japanese Grammar Guide – various grammar lessons; already download as PDF; it is a good, nicely-formatted PDF.
Counter Words
About.com: Counting in Japanese – A brief article on what counters are, how they are used, a list of common ones.
Japanese Numbers and Counting – An overview on numbers, counting, and counters, from “Tim-sensei.”
LanguageRealm.com: Japanese Counters – A list of common counters.
Trussel.com: Japanese Numeral Counters – A list of about 500 counter words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word – An overview of counters, including a list, and it explains how the way they come together with number creates some variances, such as how “ichi + 回 kai → 一回 ikkai.”
PDF file: Japanese Counter Words – I believe this is much of the Wikipedia information organized and formatted into a PDF.
123Japanese.com: Counters – Yet another overview of counters; has a few more examples.
Verbs
Sing-Japan: Ichidan Verbs – Ichidan & past tense (Just in case, it was originally here.)
Sing-Japan: Yodan/Godan Verbs – Yodan/Godan & past tense (Just in case, it was originally here.)
LearnJapaneseQuickly: Yodan Verbs in Japanese – Different conjugations of Yodan verbs, in aiueo vowel order.
Epochrypha.com: Japanese Verbs – An at-a-glance view of the verb lessons covered at Tim Sensei’s Corner, mainly in terms of verb bases and stems.
Epochrypha.com: Godan Verbs Ending in -iru / -eru – A list of godan verbs ending in iru/eru.
Casual Verb Constructions 1 – Brief explanation of the dictionary form as used in casual speech.
Casual Verb Constructions 2 – Continuation; dictionary form for negative and interrogative sentences.
Casual Verb Constructions 3 – Casual/Polite form – affirmative pattern
Vocabulary and Phrases
JapaneseFile – big vocab list; verbs, nouns, and business words, in groups. Very straightforward layout. Browse list or do a quiz through them.
Bad Japanese Words – slang phrases & words.
Japanese Slang – more slang.
Examples of Japanese Onomatopoeia – Onomatopoeia
Name suffixes – concise but pretty complete summary of honorifics
Wikipédia: Particule en japonais – Japanese particles at French Wikipedia.
Five Japanese words that don’t mean what you think they mean – Five Japanese words that don’t mean what you think they mean due to their use in English.
Family on ‘About.com’ – Words of family members.
How to Learn Japanese Phrases for Restaurants – Video lesson
Easy Japanese Phrases for Restaurants – Another video lesson, same teacher.
Learn Japanese Language – Someone’s blog on studying Japanese. Has a few interesting articles, may be worth a look.
JLPT Level N5 Vocabulary List – vocab list
JLPT Level N5 Kanji List – kanji list with example compounds
5 Step JLPT Study Method Using Japanese Newspapers for Kids – Provides the links as well (such as 毎日小学生新聞). Definitely aimed at learning Kanji.
JLPT Listening Tips – Tips on preparing for and taking the listening section of the JLPT.
JLPT Kanji – Printer-friendly Lists – JLPT Kanji Lists
Misc., Cultural, Etc.
Japanese Emoticons (or Anime emoticons) – nice list of emoticons
Guide to Japanese Text Emoticons and Chibi Facial Expressions! – more emoticons
10 cheesy Japanese pickup lines (and an iPhone app) – cheesy pickup lines
10 ways to start a conversation with a hot girl/guy in Japanese – serious pickups
Guide to Japanese Text Emoticons and Chibi Facial Expressions! – An explanation of Japanese emoticons with pictures.
A hole-in-one in Japan can cost you $10,000 – An American newspaper reports on hole-in-one insurance
Japanese Tongue Twister – 39 Tongue Twisters
Lingualift.com: 70 Best Japanese Non-Pop Music Artists – Top picks for non-pop artists; includes a few Youtube videos.
Learning Characters
All About Radicals (1) – radicals
Practice Listening, Reading, etc.
Nihongo – Various resources for reading, writing, listening, kanji, dictionaries, etc.
JLPT Listening – links for radio, TV, free audiobooks, and more
Kanji Etymology
Note: I could write a whole essay discussing whether or not it’s worth learning etymologies. It is less useful now that people are learning simplified, and thus may not help as much as one would like, so mnemonics are more commonly used and taught rather than etymology – keep that in mind, because a lot of people may “explain” a character to you but it’s actually the mnemonic and not really how it was derived. So it’s up to you how much etymology you look up, but at least check it out once in a while; it’s cool stuff. If you do, always check out more than one source because different places may sometimes claim different things.
KanjiNetworks.com’s Etymology Dictionary – Best, hands down. Most clear explanations. Includes pictures.
Wiktionary.org – Seriously; sometimes has etymology.
YellowBridge (see Dictionaries section of this email) has an etymology section, but it is NOT real; it’s more of a visual look at the character’s components.
Unreviewed Resources
Learning pitch accent – Will look at it later
A list of some resources for learners of Japanese – HUGE LIST of resources
Lingualift.com: Best Japanese Learning Resources – This webpage is much like what you’re reading right now – only it’s just for Japanese and covers both print, online, paid, and free resources. A very good list that includes most of my own top picks, and even better: most resources are marked with a graphic that shows what level of JLPT the content corresponds with.
Kanji IME (input method editor)
On your computer
How to Type Japanese Characters on PC or MAC – Setting up Japanese entry on your computer.
Online
Google Translate – if you pick Japanese as input language, you are now able to “type phonetically” (toneless pinyin), so you can write full sentences in hanzi with this.
http://www.google.com/intl/ja/ime/ – Google’s Japanese IME
Software and Other Learning Programs
These will later be put on a different page dedicated to learning software.
Skritter – (Paid service) Learn and practice drawing characters and learn a few words along the way.
Information about educational institution purchases – For institutions
JapanesePod101 App – jp101 chrome app
Yale Anime Society’s list of the 100 Most Essential Words in Anime.