Online-Dictionary.biz

This online dictionary site offers Chinesse, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian in addition to Japanese. Unfortunately, the E-J and the J-E pages are separate right now but otherwise it seems to work fast and offers sample sentences where available.

The 214 radicals and their English names

The 214 traditional radicals, arranged according to stroke count, along with their Japanese names and the English names commonly associated with them (with thanks to Prof. David Mosher). Part of the Kanji Clinic site but seemed worthy of its own entry.

Kanji Clinic

Mary Noguchi is a proffessor at Meijiro University who writes a column on learning Kanji for the Japan Times. Her homepage has all of her columns, other articles, reviews of Kanji learning materials, and links to other Kanji-related sites.

Genki Self-Study Pages

This site offers self-study exercises (requires Japanese input abilities) that correspond to the textbook, ‘Genki – An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese’.

The use of javascript technology for the study exercises is pretty cool, though it may not be obvious that from Lesson 4 on you have to hit the enter key (not enter button) after entering your answers.

Names in Japanese

site has Japanese translations and kanji representations for many personal names.

Japanese Language Strategy

Studying Japanse is not a trivial task. But it is no mystery either. You need an enthusiastic approach and a long breath.

Note: also check out the Zaurus Otaku Kurabu (Zaurus dictionary project) on this site…

Which Japanese-English Character Dictionary Can Best Meet Your Kanji-Learning Needs?

For Japanese As a Second Language (JSL) learners, a Japanese-English character dictionary is much more than a reference tool: It is also the most comprehensive self-instructional tool available for learning new kanji and vocabulary. JSL learners in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s relied on the “grandfather” of modern Japanese-English character dictionaries, Andrew Nelson’s The Modern Reader’s Japanese-English Character Dictionary, (1962). Owing to the appearance during … [ Read more ]

Hans Wadsten’s Nippon Portal

Hans Wadsten has put together what he calls a portal but what I think you will really find useful on this site are the kanji lists he has posted. He has .gif and .doc files that you can print and make into kanji flashcards. Find kanji sets by character number and also by grade (1-6).

Common Japanese Terms in Anime

This site contains some of the common terms heard in anime and gives their explanations.

Kanjistep.com

At kanjistep.com you can find information about the Japanese language, culture and other Japan related topics. Our goal is to help students of Japanese to master the language and build a global community of people interested in Japan, its language and culture.

On this web site we offer free language teaching materials of all levels for self-study. Currently there are over 200 pages and over 600 … [ Read more ]

Intermediate-Japanese Online Music

On this site you can find various songs to listen to along with their lyrics – most available in Japanese, Romaji and English translation. Some of the artists include:
– Toshinobu Kubota
– Dragon Ash
– Ken Hirai
– Southern All Stars
– Chemistry
– Katsuyuki Kurai
– Ayaka Hirahara
– Minmi
– Hikaru Utada
– Misia … [ Read more ]

E-Kanji

E-Kanji is a website designed to help students of Japanese improve their reading. It consists of reading passages, in which every Kanji is hyper-linked to a pronunciation key and a definition of the word to make reading easy. No more Kanji dictionaries. No more giving up on a reading because of one or two difficult kanji.

Note: in addition to the reading work, this site … [ Read more ]

Live from Tokyo

Listen to foreigners using unrehearsed Japanese in situations that you too are likely to encounter in Tokyo.

Japanese Penpals

This penpal/friendship forum specializes in contacts between Japanese and non Japanese people of any age for friendship, inter-cultural communication, language exchange, etc. A free japan-guide.com membership is required for participation.

Sharese.com

Site for finding Japanese housemates in Tokyo and Kansai. Also offers listing of language exchange mates.

Phrasebase

“Your Conversational Language Learning Resource Center and Community”

Features:
– Live Webcam Audio/Video Chatroom – Meet language exchange partners and friends in this live webcam based audio/video and textual virtual classroom.
– Language Exchange Pen-Pals – Community of people from around the world interested in teaching their language and sharing their culture with you.
– Online Phrasebook – Internet’s largest database of common, useful, … [ Read more ]

World Friend Network – Japan

Find some a penpal, snail pal, language exchange partner, etc.

jGram – Japanese Grammar Database

2021-04-06 NOTE: DC, the guy behind jgram, accidentally let the domain name expire. Someone else rescued it and I think he is planning to revive it himself but the details are still unclear at the moment. I have the most recent copy of the database and will be using it for my daily emails but some of the links will not work.
This is a cool … [ Read more ]

Charles Kelly’s Online Japanese Language Study Materials

This site offers an excellent assortment of free-to-use online study materials, including:
– Japanese-English Quizzes in Romaji
– Japanese Kana Quizzes
– Kanji Study
– Words from Japanese Newspapers in Order of Frequency
– CGI Flashcards: Randomly Chosen Japanese Words for Reading Practice
– Matching Quiz: Words You Should Know
– Reading Japanese Signs
– Japanese Language … [ Read more ]

Look Up Kanji by Radical

This is one part of the immensely useful Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC Server. Here you can quickly look up kanji by radical(s). Sometimes this is a very useful method of finding kanji…