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Japanese Learning Resources

Kona

Avanna's #1 Fan
Apr 8, 2018
813
USA
Hey everyone! With Vocaloid being quite the drive for people to learn Japanese, as well as other things such as anime, I thought I'd make this thread (partly as there was also one back on VO). It can be hard to find Japanese resources on your own if you aren't serious about looking, so I will provide the ones I use and anyone can add on what they use and I'll add it to this post. I'll update this post as I find more resources or as they are suggested.

Join the Japanese Study Group!
Our Discord server for learning Japanese is a friendly server where you can interact and practice with other learners from the community. From general chatting, Japanese only, practice games like shiritori, and kanji/word of the day!

List of Japanese Resources Online
This is a great master list of some resources you can find to learn Japanese, with a few of them being a part of this list as well. Great list to go through.

Free:
Hiragana - Learn Japanese
Katakana - Learn Japanese
Android apps for learning kana, plays sound to help connect sound/pronunciation with characters
Paid:
Hiragana Pixel Party
Steam page Nintendo Switch
A game that teaches Hiragana and Katakana by essentially a rhythm game. Very affordable and very fun.

Free:
Kanji Tree
Androiid app with quiz format and also includes a dictionary

Kanji Alive
Website that helps read and write Kanji for all levels

Paid:
Wanikani
An SRS for learning Kanji, The first few stages are free to do. Also teaches radicals.

Kanji Study
A mobile SRS for learning Kanji, separated by JLPT. N5 is free. More features available on Android

Free:
Tae Kim's Guide
An extensive well known guide on Japanese grammar.

Imabi
A website essentially like a free textbook, with lessons on grammar for all levels.

Japanese School Amino
Found on the Amino app (like Vocaloid Amino),, Japanese School Amino is a community of Japanese learners. Lessons are taught by the leaders of the Amino and there are various helpful posts. This community is geared more towards complete beginners.

Paid:
Genki
A series of textbooks and workbooks for learning Japanese

Human Japanese
A digital textbook duo (Beginner/Intermediate) for learning Japanese, does not cover as much as Genki but does have quizzes

Japanese from Zero!
A textbook series written at a slower pace than the above but still covers about the same grammar

Japanese Ammo
Grammar lessons for learning Japanese taught by a native speaker

Japanese from Zero! Video course
Same content as textbooks, used mainly as a companion to textbooks but can also be used on their own

日本語の森
For more advanced learners, teaches Japanese for JLPT in Japanese

Italki
Has a tutoring service and other feautres

HelloTalk
Language exchange app where you can communicate with anyone learning/fluent in Japanese and practice your skills in every day conversation

HiNative
Ask questions or look for corrections and get replies from native or fluent speakers

Duolingo
Has a Japanese course available, but does not teach grammar. Best for practicing, can also create clubs and interact a bit. Consists of writing, speaking, and listening exercises.

Busuu
Has a Japanese course with grammar notes included. If you go for the paid options, you can do speaking and writing exercise every few lessons to have corrected by natives. I believe this is also available to some extent on the free version.

Memrise
Basically flashcard decks created by users, Great companion to a textbook like Genki or HUman Japanese. Has many different exercise for flashcards, including typing and listening

Anki
An SRS where you can download and make your own flashcards for Japanese

Jisho

Jikaikun plug-in
Web plug-in for Firefox and Google Chrome that you can highlight words you don't know

Ba Ba Dum
Interactive game for learning words, includes many learning styles

OJAD
A website with a Japanese accent database. This can be used to help your pronunciation and accent

NHK News Web Easy
Once you are at a good enough level of Japanese, you can go here to read news in Japanese

Japanese Fairy Tales
Beginner level reading. Includes a listening of the stories, translation, vocabulary, and furigana.

Japanese From Zero! Online Course
Can be used with the video course; contains all content from the physical textbook series

Japanese 30 Day Challenge by Manga Sensei
Each day has 20 vocabulary words and one grammar point and is made to teach beginner Japanese

Once again, if you have any more suggestions, please let me know! I will update this with more resources and even add categories as I find them and have time, this is just a simple start. If you have a suggestion for a category, feel free to suggest that too!
 
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RabbitWhale39

Devout Mikuist
Apr 25, 2018
69
Very cool! Thank you for taking the time to compose a list! I used tangorin.com often for example sentences. :iroha_lili:
 

Move->Forward

🔹🔷🔹🔷🔹
Mar 25, 2018
253
Hiragana/Katakana:
Android apps - Free - sound plays aloud so you can also connect sound/pronunciation with the character and not just romaji with the character
Hiragana - Learn Japanese
Katakana - Learn Japanese

Kanji:
Android app - Free - quiz format for learning kanji
Features Unity-chan! (Mascot) :kohaku_lili:
Kanji Tree - There is also a dictionary in this app

Dictionary:
Android app - Free
Mobile version of jisho.org

rikaikun plug-in for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox (possibly more browsers, but I do not know)
Highlight over Japanese words you do not know to receive a definition

Words:
Free interactive flash game for learning new words in various languages, Japanese included. Match words with the pictures. Other styles of gameplay also available.
Ba Ba Dum

Android app - Free - sound plays aloud so you can also connect sound/pronunciation with the words
Can choose to play with Romaji, Kana or Kanji and can choose Easy or Hard difficulties - Words divided by categories
Infinite Japanese
(Note: only first 6 categories are free. The rest must be paid for.)

General:
Online site for learning Japanese-
Japanesepod101.com - provides lessons. Does have paid-for option, but if you don't want to do the lessons, you can get a "Word of the day" via the email used with your free account.

YouTube channels:
Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com - Free videos for learning Japanese words or other Japanese things

PuniPuniJapan - Free videos for learning Japanese words or other Japanese things
They also have a website and Facebook page. You can sign up for free to get emails from them (at least I think you can, but I cannot recall how. I get emails from them, so I must have signed up for it somehow. Maybe from their free ebooks sign-up.)

---

Does anyone know of a good resource for learning the radicals of kanji?
 
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Kona

Avanna's #1 Fan
Apr 8, 2018
813
USA
Very cool! Thank you for taking the time to compose a list! I used tangorin.com often for example sentences. :iroha_lili:
Thank you!
Hiragana/Katakana:
Android apps - Free - sound plays aloud so you can also connect sound/pronunciation with the character and not just romaji with the character
Hiragana - Learn Japanese
Katakana - Learn Japanese

Kanji:
Android app - Free - quiz format for learning kanji
Features Unity-chan! (Mascot) :kohaku_lili:
Kanji Tree - There is also a dictionary in this app

Dictionary:
Android app - Free
Mobile version of jisho.org

rikaikun plug-in for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox (possibly more browsers, but I do not know)
Highlight over Japanese words you do not know to receive a definition

Words:
Free interactive flash game for learning new words in various languages, Japanese included. Match words with the pictures. Other styles of gameplay also available.
Ba Ba Dum

Android app - Free - sound plays aloud so you can also connect sound/pronunciation with the words
Can choose to play with Romaji, Kana or Kanji and can choose Easy or Hard difficulties - Words divided by categories
Infinite Japanese
(Note: only first 6 categories are free. The rest must be paid for.)

General:
Online site for learning Japanese-
Japanesepod101.com - provides lessons. Does have paid-for option, but if you don't want to do the lessons, you can get a "Word of the day" via the email used with your free account.

YouTube channels:
Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com - Free videos for learning Japanese words or other Japanese things

PuniPuniJapan - Free videos for learning Japanese words or other Japanese things
They also have a website and Facebook page. You can sign up for free to get emails from them (at least I think you can, but I cannot recall how. I get emails from them, so I must have signed up for it somehow. Maybe from their free ebooks sign-up.)

---

Does anyone know of a good resource for learning the radicals of kanji?
Thanks for the extra resources, Move! I've started adding them.

For learning radicals, if you don't have it already, I very highly recommend Remembering the Kanji book series. The website Kanji Alive (as I added to the main post now) also has resources for learning radicals

--

I've slowly started adding more resources. Will continue to keep adding the ones provided by these posts as well as other ones I use
 

dubsteppin

It is your duty to be happy!
Apr 8, 2018
17
RVA
For Kanji, I used the nihongoshark flashcards for Anki (NihongoShark.com Kanji Deck - AnkiWeb)

It uses the mnemonic descriptions from Remembering the Kanji but you can also add your own descriptions if you find something that works better for you.

I'd also recommend nihongomaster.com. The beginner lessons are all free and their lessons cover up to JLPT N3 so far.
 

Move->Forward

🔹🔷🔹🔷🔹
Mar 25, 2018
253
I forgot about this little Chrome plug-in I have that gives random Japanese words with a cute picture in a flashcard like fashion! A flashcard will appear when you open a new tab (or window if you have no homepage set).
Mainichi
There may be a Firefox version as well, but I'm not sure.
 

dubsteppin

It is your duty to be happy!
Apr 8, 2018
17
RVA
I forgot about this little Chrome plug-in I have that gives random Japanese words with a cute picture in a flashcard like fashion! A flashcard will appear when you open a new tab (or window if you have no homepage set).
Mainichi
There may be a Firefox version as well, but I'm not sure.
Oh nice. This is pretty neat
 
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empressdonna

New Fan
Apr 8, 2018
15
Scotland, UK
Lang-8 is still around but that's only really good for those that have an account there already.

There's also Satori Reader that I've tried in the past though I forget if when I tried it originally if the option to import kanji knowledge from wanikani was there or not.
 

dubsteppin

It is your duty to be happy!
Apr 8, 2018
17
RVA
Another good resource could be each other! Like I'm pretty good at reading but my speaking ability is not so hot because I have no one to practice with. So maybe something like a study group or something could be a thing.
 
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Kona

Avanna's #1 Fan
Apr 8, 2018
813
USA
Another good resource could be each other! Like I'm pretty good at reading but my speaking ability is not so hot because I have no one to practice with. So maybe something like a study group or something could be a thing.
I actually love this idea! I don't have much of anyone to practice with either, and a study group would be awesome! I think I might just make a Discord server just for learning Japanese as a study group!

EDIT: I have made a Japanesr Study Group Discord server. Still working on it a bit, but feel free to join!

Also on updating the OP, I'll be out of town all next this upcoming week so I won't be able to update it. But when I get back, I will update!
 
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Kona

Avanna's #1 Fan
Apr 8, 2018
813
USA
LingoDeer is pretty good! I haven't too had much of a chance to use it myself since it's mobile-only I don't really use my phone that often, but when I have used it, it's worked very well for me. Here it is on Google Play, and here it is on the Apple App Store.
Also, +1 for Anki. This is the deck I've been using so far for kanji.

Edit: Shoot, I just noticed this thread is actually kind of old. Sorry for necro'ing it.
Thanks for more resources! I’ll try adding them when I have time. And this is a resource thread, so don’t worry at all about reviving it! It’s always good to have more resources.
 
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Kona

Avanna's #1 Fan
Apr 8, 2018
813
USA
Finakly back to updaying this again. I assume people can go through and see all in the thread so I’m adding those last.

I also added this site that has a huge list of resources. I found it the other week and man, I have foubd some nice stuff on here!
 
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xuu

long suffering synth fan
Apr 8, 2018
671
23
UK
I can recommend these. Mostly aimed at UK Education System but plenty of resources including flashcards etc for anyone who's into that sort of stuff.
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
Here are my suggestions:

DICTIONARY:

weblio eiwa jiten/waei jiten: JP>EN dictionary for those who have outgrown Jisho.org and are ready for a dictionary that has definitions/example sentences in both English and Japanese
weblio jisho: For those who are ready to try to read Japanese only definitions
Switching the language of Wikipedia articles from English to Japanese is also very helpful

READING:
GANGAN Online: Square Enix's manga that you can read 1 chapter previews of before it gets updated again. Some preview images let you read it right away, but others, you have to click the yellow 読む button to read it.
Amazon Japan's free Kindle samples. You can switch the website language to be in English if you need to. You might have to download the free Kindle for PC app to send yourself the samples. I've been using this a lot lately, highlighting words, adding definition notes, and pasting the sentences into CeVIO so it will read it out loud and slower for me.
 

Jisenku

womp womp
Nov 17, 2020
86
18
idk anymore
jisenku.carrd.co
how dare you necropost and drag us all back here
I got one!

Mango Languages is one that while I haven't used in a while, my experience with it was a w e s o m e! It was so guided, had lots of detail, much more than Duolingo or other apps did. It was less about quickly learning Japanese and more about taking your time and learning as much as you can. The lessons were awesome, and are in a regular guided format, where you would constantly be engaging in the lesson, and "podcast mode (as I would call it)" where you would be listening to an automated lesson, slightly less engaging but still informative. The service itself is more focused on teaching you core elements of Japanese rather than being extremely extensive.

The service itself is paid, $7.99 USD per month for one language, or $17.99 USD per month for all languages. However, they have a service where you can possibly get it for free through your local library, try visiting your local library's website to see if they have it or contact them.


https://mangolanguages.com/

Edit:

Oh also another thing, visit nippon.com if you want to learn more about what's going on in Japan, and it's a really nice resource, plus most articles are in both Japanese and English, as well as some being in many other languages, so it could be a good study tool.

https://www.nippon.com/en/
 
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