675 Posts Found

Tofugu Review:

Pulling material from both NHK News and Hukumusume, TangoRisto allows users to make the most of their reading experience with unique features, customizable vocabulary lists, and easy Japanese dictionary lookup.

When you open the app, you’re given a few options to choose from:

1. NHK News Easy
2. Top NHK News
3. Hukumusume.

NHK News Easy is Japanese news written for kids – think … [ Read more ]

Author: Javier Artiles | Source: Tofugu | Subjects: Apps, Language Study, Reading Material, Vocabulary / Phrases

Kanshudo is the fastest and most enjoyable way to learn and remember the Japanese kanji and written Japanese generally. Whatever your current level of Japanese ability, Kanshudo will help you improve, with assessment tools such as our unique visualization of your kanji ability, the Kanji Wheel, games such as Kanji Match and Word Match, the Kanji Quiz, fun and engaging Beginner lessons and Intermediate lessons, … [ Read more ]

Author: Jonathan Kirk | Subjects: General, Language Study, Software / Tools, Translate

In this series, Tofugu asks learners what Japanese learning resources and methods they use to study and why. Today, we talk to Jonathan Kirk, the guy who made the popular kanji learning app, *Kanshudo*. Jonathan focused on building up his reading skill first (which led him to create his kanji learning system). So if you want to boost your Japanese reading ability, pay attention.

Editor’s Note: … [ Read more ]

Author: Jonathan Kirk | Source: Tofugu | Subjects: Language Learning Tips, Language Study, Software / Tools

Ross at Japanistry has created a Japanese language school database that contains the latest school information and lets you search by a range of criteria (location, course type, accommodation criteria) so that you can find the best school quickly and easily. According to Ross, there are a few other databases out there at the moment but they unfortunately contain dated information or are not easily … [ Read more ]

Source: Japanistry | Subject: Schools

I first launched this site in late 2002. I did all the programming myself and, while over the years I have made a few tweaks here and there, mostly I haven’t done much in terms of keeping up with the times. The site wasn’t mobile ready or responsive and the design was pretty sad. Well, maybe the design is still a bit sad, but at … [ Read more ]

Subject: Other Useful Resources

Editor’s Note: I post this despite the protests I know it will inspire in many. It is a strange, but interesting piece. As the author states at the end, the essay is a joke and should be taken like one. Anyway, I don’t specifically endorse anything said but neither do I apologize for posting it.
So You Want To Learn Japanese.
You’ve eaten at a few Japanese … [ Read more ]

Subject: Articles

Typing in BOTH Japanese and English WITHOUT switching between the two in IME.
Switching IME modes is a real pain. Have you ever wondered if there is a better way? Well, there is. Actually there are two ways:

1. Just select the Japanese mode, type whatever you want in Japanese and then hit the F10 button. This works great for a single word but may not be

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Language Learning Tips

Update: It seems that Hitomi Hirayama is now offering the original PDF files on her own website (yay!). I have updated the individual list of files below but it would probably be easier to just click through to her website.

This was a great short (1-page PDF) Japanese language learning column written by Hitomi Hirayama and carried every five weeks in the Daily … [ Read more ]

Source: Hitomi Hirayama | Subject: Pera Pera Penguin

The kanji methods war is broken up into several camps, which I will be naming the following:
– Repetition
– Vocabulary & Context
– Reading Reading Reading
– Heisig’s
– Mnemonics With Readings

As I go through each “Way Of The Kanji,” I’d like to look at the positives, negatives, and history of each (if possible).

Source: Tofugu | Subject: Kanji

Slime Forest Adventure is a learning RPG which aims to teach a basic set of Japanese language skills. The free demo version of the game teaches the user how to identify all hiragana and katakana characters, along with up to 200 kanji, and also contains supplementary grammar training. There are two premium versions of the game: Gradeschool Kanji expands the kanji covered to 1,000 and … [ Read more ]

Source: Darrell Johnson | Subject: Kanji

Kanji Games is a site offering two Kanji learning games, to be used either on the site or via iOS apps. Kanji Connect is a fun way to learn JLPT kanji/vocabulary and the full version (not free though a free ‘lite’ version is available) contains over 1125 kanji (45 levels x 25 kanji), covering JLPT N5 to N2. The Lex Flashcard Game app is a … [ Read more ]

Source: Oliver Rose | Subject: Kanji

RomajiDesu is another free online Japanese ⇆ English dictionary. You may type a word in Japanese, Hiragana, Romaji or English. A mobile-friendly version is available as well. Other features include sample sentences, audio pronunciation, kanji information and stroke order diagrams.

Source: Bui Hoang Hai | Subject: Translate

Koichi at Tofugu offers up an excellent primer on identifying unknown kanji characters and lists some useful resources. Even more useful resources are mentioned in the comments, so check them out as well.

Source: Tofugu | Subject: Kanji

Looks like a non-Japanese (aka USA, for now) Amazon Kindle store now stocks books in the Japanese language. This opens up some huge opportunities for study, though it does currently have its share of problems. Koichi spent the weekend reading terrible books and trying things out, though, so he’d be able to share them with you.

Source: Tofugu | Subject: Reading Material

Since it’s normally pretty hard for beginners to find reading resources, Tofugu put together a list of resources for beginners to study with, listing them with a little bit about each including some suggestions on how to study with them.

Source: Tofugu | Subject: Reading Material

Is Japan really as expensive as people say it is? Ashley Thompson has discovered many ways to save money, both as a resident and as a traveler. Some are fairly standard, but others were learned through trial and error.

Source: Tofugu | Subject: Travel & Tourism

Harvey at JapanNewbie.com talks about using his Kindle to read Japanese.

Source: JapanNewbie.com | Subject: Miscellaneous

Koichi at Tofugu has come up with a list of ten things he really wishes he had known during the days of his youth that would have made my Japanese-learning life so much easier.

Source: Tofugu | Subject: Language Learning Tips

At the core of Japanese there’s hiragana, the basic Japanese alphabet (or syllabary, if you want to be pedantic about it). But it wasn’t until pretty recently that hiragana was standardized. Until the 20th century, people could basically write hiragana however they wanted to. Those different ways of writing hiragana were called hentaigana (変体仮名).

Source: Tofugu | Subject: History

The J Guide is a topically arranged directory of online information resources in and about Japan, with focus on resources about Japan in the English language.

Source: Stanford | Subject: Comprehensive