Delenir's Corner

Last updated: May 2013

I really feel that learning Japanese can be broken down into 5 convenient parts: the writing system, vocabulary acquisition, learning grammar, reading practice, and listening practice. Here you will find my collection of tools and resources that I actually use myself for all of these elements. I won’t put anything here that isn’t tested and true. Think of this as your kit for being awesome at Japanese.

(*) Indicates a free resource

($) Indicates a paid product

(!) Indicates something paid, but that has a free trial of some kind.

Writing

Hirgana & Katakana:

(!) Dr. Moku (mobile and flash/web)

(*) Animated hiragana and katakana

(!) Read The Kanji (has an free option for kana)

(*) Hiragana and katakana charts from Kids@Nifty

Kanji:

(!) Remembering The Kanji (has an official free sample)

(*) Reviewing The Kanji

(*) Japanese Level Up RTK Mod (pre-made Anki deck)

(!) Read The Kanji (JLPT N5 level kanji is free)

Vocabulary

(!) iKnow.jp Includes a placement test, as well as various forms of quizzing.

(*) Anki shared decks, especially JLPT-based ones.

(*) Learning With Texts

Dictionaries & Reference, to use either with LWT or on their own.

(*) Yahoo! Japan dictionary (Great for bilingual examples and definitions)

(*) Tangorin (Multi-resource dictionary)

(*) Space ALC (Best for expressions rather than words)

(*) Jisho.org

(*) Kanji dictionary

(*) WWWJDIC

(*) Aedict (Android)

Grammar

($) Genki a very well supported textbook

($) Japanese For Busy People (be sure to use kana versions)

(*) Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese

($) All About Particles

(*) Anki shared decks, especially based on your textbook(s)

Reading

Basically anything with text, including native subs and video games

(*) Maru (who doesn’t love cats?)

(*) Yahoo! Kids has information and news on various topics as well as interactive games and quizzes.

(*) The Japanese Wikipedia can be used to look up familiar topics, or simply enjoy their main page, updated daily!

(*) Free manga is widely available on the Internets. Enjoy!

(*) News Web Easy is daily news with furigana, built in monolingual dictionary, and audio/video accompaniment.

($) Graded Readers are a huge confidence boost, and interesting too!

($) J-List has books, manga, and magazines. Look for out for those sales!

($) PlayAsia has import games of all kinds. As long as there’s lots of text it’s still reading, and fun!

(*) Anime subtitles in Japanese

(*) J-Drama subtitles in Japanese

(!) The Japanese Amazon store

Tools

(*) The Surusu URL Shuffler can create some variety in your reading.

(*) Furigana Injector (for Google Chrome)

(*) Hiragana Megane (web-based furigana generator)

(*) Rikaikun & Rikaichan (popup dictionary for Chrome and Firefox respectively)

(*) Send To Kindle (browser plugin for Kindle owners or Kindle app users)

Listening

Includes TV, radio, and music

(*) Japanese podcasts on iTunes

(*) Armitunes (anime and jpop/jrock music)

(*) Delicast Japanese radio stations

(!) Crunchyroll can have English subtitles turned off for some titles.

(*) Grooveshark is a great way to discover new Japanese music.

Tools

(*) FreeMake converter (convert video, rip audio, and more)

(*) Slice Audio File Splitter to split up long audio files.

(*) MP3Gain to normalize your audio.