Japanese Lessons with Mom & Daughter

Are you studying JLPT N2 grammar and looking for something new? If so, we have a YouTube channel you may be interested in. Although “Japanese Lessons with Mom & Daughter” has only been out for five months, they already have dozens of videos, all on the topic of N2 grammar. In these clips, a mother with seventeen years of Japanese language teaching experience and her … [ Read more ]

Nihongo to Tabi (日本語 to 旅)

Nihongo to Tabi is a relatively new YouTube channel, launched back in January of this year. The host and creator of the channel, who is unnamed, didn’t really start publishing videos at warp speed until May though. As this is being written, he’s currently up to 167 uploads! That’s quite the output for such a short time frame — at some points, he was even … [ Read more ]

日本語文型バンク (Japanese Grammar Point Bank)

For the grammar nerds out there, this one is for you! 日本語文型バンク (or “Japanese Grammar Point Bank”) is a collection of grammar explanations and example sentences, created by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). They create a lot of amazing tools for analyzing and learning about the Japanese language, and this one is quite a gem.

The tool’s content is organized into … [ Read more ]

Japanese Structure vs English Structure

This is a cool diagram I found recently that compares the grammatical structure of a fairly complex sentence written in Japanese and English.

Obenkyo (Android)

Learn Japanese hiragana, katakana and kanji, and test yourself by drawing, or multiple choice. This application helps you memorize:

  • Japanese syllabary :Katakana & Hiragana, with flash card, keyboard, or drawing recognition
  • Numbers, in romaji, Hiragana, or kanji
  • 2300+ japanese kanji’s (level 1-5 JLPT or Jouyou 1-7) with stroke animation (source KanjiVG), translation, readings (Source KanjiDict) with flash card and drawing game.
  • 14600+ japanese words (in

[ Read more ]

やさしい日本語 | Easy Japanese Grammar lessons

“Easy Japanese” is a program of Japanese language lessons produced by Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK WORLD RADIO JAPAN. You can learn basic grammar and useful expressions through lessons designed in audio-drama style. You can download audio and texts for the lessons free of charge.

The heroine of the story is Anna, a 20-year-old Thai student who loves Japanese manga. She has come to Japan to learn … [ Read more ]

Marshall’s Blog

Marshall’s Blog is a not-for-profit website to help people learn Japanese. It was created by Marshall Yin, a student living in Tokyo who has himself been learning Japanese as a second language for ten years. The site is packed with vocabulary lists, grammar explanations, and quizzes, all organized according to JLPT level. While the lessons and forum are accessible to everyone, you’ll need to create … [ Read more ]

Bunpo

Bunpo is a Japanese grammar study app covering JLPT N5 to N1, it’s seriously packed with content—and the polished illustrations and UI are a nice touch too!

When you launch the app, choose a JLPT level or basic kana lesson (the app also teaches hiragana/katakana if you’re a beginner). You’ll see a collection of cards containing grammar lessons you can study and review in any order.

First, … [ Read more ]

JLPT Stories

JLPT Stories is a new podcast and companion site based in Shinjuku that provides stories in Japanese, labeled with their intended JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level. Each three to four minute story is written and read by a native Japanese speaker at normal speed.

On the website, JLPT Stories provides Japanese transcripts for the stories, with grammar points relating to each story’s JLPT level highlighted … [ Read more ]

Manga Sensei

Manga Sensei offers multiple free options for learning Japanese, including a daily grammar podcast, a daily Kanji video on YouTube, a 30 day basic grammar challenge, and an original manga strip that teaches different grammar and cultural lessons. The latter follows the Yamaguchi Family as they travel Japan and meet interesting characters and grow up. Each weekly theme is written by Japanese natives for all … [ Read more ]

The Ultimate Guide To: は vs が (The ONLY lesson you need!)

This forty minute video by YouTuber Misa from Japanese Ammo might be one of the only resources titled “ultimate” and “the only lesson you need” that I actually believe. Misa breaks down the particles and and explains the differences in depth with multiple examples and on-screen text and translations.

and can be a major struggle for English … [ Read more ]

Ultra Handy Japanese Verb Conjugator

Enter the dictionary form of a Japanese verb and click the button.

Editor’s Note: I haven’t used the site yet, and based on the description the conjugation is based on a programmatic algorithm which may or may not be robust enough to do the job. But, it seems like a good addition to the online Japanese language learning universe.

The “Passive”

A download from the JapanEd site (basically a site to promote the books “Understanding Japanese Verbs & Adjectives” and “Techniques for Japanese-English Translation”) which offers, I think, a very good overview of the complexities involved with using the passive verb form in Japanese.

The Causative/Permissive

A download from the JapanEd site (basically a site to promote the books “Understanding Japanese Verbs & Adjectives” and “Techniques for Japanese-English Translation”) which offers, I think, a very good overview of the complexities involved with using the causative/permissve verb form in Japanese.

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanese

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanese is a canonical classic of the Internet community. Posted years ago on the sci.lang.japan newsgroup, this guide appears in a multitude of pages written by folks such as myself, devoted to the learning of the Japanese language.

Usually the guide is presented in a plain-text-only format. I recall running across a similarly html-lized version a year or two ago, … [ Read more ]

Lessons in Japanese on WagaWiki

Part of TJP’s WagaWiki, this site offers quite a bit of grammar explanations, mostly at the basic and advanced basic levels. Note that the main page says later grammar pages are under continuing revision and aren’t shown but in fact if you click the link on those pages at the top the content does exist…

日本語阜サ文型辞典

A compilation of Japanese grammatical expressions – completely in Japanese.