My Japanese resources

Here’s the Japanese equivalent for my Korean resources, my Swedish resources, and my Norwegian resources, in order from most to least used and helpful:

  • Memrise: Vocabulary building via flashcards. Used all the time during any stage of learning Japanese, or any other language, for that matter. Using Memrise is like using flashcards, but a lot more beneficial since it utilizes not just repetition, but spaced repetition. That means it checks how long ago you learned a word and reminds you to revisit the word at a time when you’re most likely to be about to forget it. It often has (user-created!) mnemonic devices to help aid the recall process even further. I wholeheartedly recommend Memrise to anyone who’s learning any language. You can even create your own deck to help other users practice! Here’s a detailed deck I made myself for Japanese that splits words into categories like godan verbs, na-adjectives, and more. 😀
  • Guide to Japanese: This guide is extremely helpful to me, and is the number one source I use to build my grammar.
  • Tanoshii Japanese: Tanoshii Japanese, while it’s a fantastic Japanese to English (and vice-versa) dictionary, also has hiragana, katakana, kanji, and vocabulary lessons, and will teach you kanji immediately before showing you some words containing the kanji you just learned! It also has extremely helpful games you can play, and you can tie your progress to your account. I absolutely recommend this site, as it’s basically somewhat of a Japanese-specific Memrise, catering specifically to ways that would help one test their hiragana, katakana, kanji, and vocabulary knowledge.
  • Lingua Junkie: Lingua Junkie gives a fantastic breakdown of many different ways to say the same thing, which means it’s a fantastic way to build your vocabulary and stop saying things the same way every time. For example, there’s an article about 22 awesome ways to say how are you in Japanese, and one for 22 ways to say I agree in Japanese. I definitely recommend these, and there are plenty more on the site!
  • JREF’s Japanese Slang article: Great for learning slang, the value of which cannot be understated if you want to learn real-world Japanese!
  • Tangorin: Like Tanoshii Japanese, Tangorin also serves as a great Japanese to English (and vice-versa) dictionary, and is incredibly helpful with the meanings of different kanji. Because of the extra features (and the more attractive interface), however, I like to use Tanoshii Japanese more often.
  • Hotarun: Like a hybrid of Tanoshii Japanese and Verbix, Hotarun will explain what a kanji means or conjugate verbs for you, among many other things!
  • Learn-Japanese.info: The vocabulary and grammar lessons here are very simple and to the point!
  • The Japanese Page: Over at The Japanese Page, there’s a great section called Fast Track: 100 Grammar Points that is just glorious in jump-starting your Japanese grammar knowledge. It teaches you 100 short grammar snippets on how to use words like “about”, “for example”, “this”, “that”, “that over there”, and more.
  • PuniPuniJapan: PuniPuniJapan definitely wins points for being adorable. It’s a fabulously colorful website that really makes Japanese learning cute and fun, and it teaches vocabulary, phrases, and grammar for free.
  • Japanese Professor: Japanese Professor has great lessons in order to learn Japanese!
  • Daiu International: Daiu International has a bunch of vocabulary lists to suit your fancy, whether you want to specifically learn more adjectives, pronouns, or even some Japanese proverbs.
  • Nihongo Ichiban: There are some grammar lessons here, and also some survival Japanese lessons if you just want to get your feet wet and no more. If you’re serious enough about Japanese to take the JLPT (general Japanese proficiency test) or BJT (business Japanese proficiency test), though, it also helpfully contains lists for vocabulary you’ll need to know for J5, J4, and so on.
  • Jonsay.co.uk: Like Daiu International, Jonsay has great vocabulary lists like this one for different categories such as computers, directions, and even the Japanese words for dinosaurs! They have vocabulary lists for other languages, too, not just Japanese.
  • Japanese websites about interests: For example, if you’re interested in anime, why not trying to read some words off of animeanime.jp once you have some kanji and vocabulary under your belt? Or maybe read some articles in English about some cool stuff Japan has going on and practice reading the Japanese around it.
  • Verbix: I use this verb conjugator for pretty much any language I’m learning!
  • Japanese Verb Conjugator: With a slightly easier to understand format than Verbix, this “Ultra Handy Japanese Verb Conjugator” is a great way to find out how to conjugate a Japanese verb if you’re at a loss! However, even though it has a prettier format than Verbix, the conjugations are automatically generated.

  • Google Translate: Used all-the-freaking-time to define single words. Here’s how it normally works for me: I see a word in LingQ or hear a word in a podcast, and then look it up via Google Translate if I intuit how it’s spelled. I hardly ever use Google Translate for translating phrases, because if you give it more than one word, it often messes up. For best results, translate FROM your target language INTO English, as Google Translate tends to have a better grasp on English than some of the other languages. It’s also decent enough to use vice-versa, but I don’t trust its English-to-Japanese translation as much as the reverse. Remember, in the beginning, when translating something from English to your target language in Google Translate, don’t use ambiguous sentences that can be translated in multiple different ways; try to stick to simple sentences until you can tell when Google Translate is wrong, at which point you can feed it more complex things.
  • J-dramas or anime: Used after I learn some initial vocabulary so I can then listen for the words I’ve just learned. This serves as my “listening to natives” practice when I’m not currently speaking to Japanese or Japanese learners. Listening to a podcast or watching a show in your target language isn’t always beneficial for learning words if you have no beginning vocabulary; the key to really getting it to work is if you know a few words so you can figure out the words next to them. What listening can do if you don’t have starting vocabulary, however, is get you used to how they speak.
  • Jisho.org: Good for breaking down the parts of a sentence you want to translate so you can piece the sentence back together yourself after studying the individual bits!
  • Over at Lingua Junkie, there’s also a list of really helpful apps to learn Japanese with on your phone.

Once again, if you have any fantastic resources that work for you, feel free to mention them, but all of these in conjunction work extremely well for me!

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