Resources review for Japanese
I recommend, if you haven't done it before, find your learning style. Taking the vark-learn questionnaire can be a guide.
Programs, addons, plug-ins
SRS
Don't "kill yourself" with it. It's to review and not study (although some people do it). Just use it for a couple of minutes.
For beginners it's very helpful for the lack of texts in that level, poor grammar and vocabulary. As you advance, decrease the usage and do more reading/listening.
Anki
- URL
- Platform
Multiplatform.
- Code
Open
- Storage
SQLite
- Clients
desktop, smartphones, web
- Price
- Free
- Highly popular
- Many plugins and decks.
- Community very focused on Japanese
- Sync with Ankiweb.
- Very flexible and customizable.
- Graphics and statistics
Mnemosyne
- URL
- Platform
Multiplatform.
- Code
Open
- Storage
SQLite
- Clients
desktop, android, "web" (activate the webserver), phones with J2ME
- Price
- Free
- No so popular, but has been around for a while
- More generic than Anki.
- Shared decks and plugins.
- Graphics and statistics
- Sync with devices (no web, one device acts like server).
Dictionaries
Tagaini Jisho
- URL
- Platform
Multiplatform.
- Code
Open
- Storage
SQLite
- Price
- Free
- Dictionary + kanji lookup + learning tool/asistant.
- Can tag, add notes to entries and organize them in lists.
- Flashcards (no SRS) which highlight the entries based on the score (from red to green).
- Basic export to TSV (Anki) and booklet making
Cons:
- Can't search inside lists (only in study lists)
Can't separate the studied kanji from vocabulary- You can only export the word, pronunciation and definition. Notes are exported when you create a booklet. Tags and lists can't be exported.
Rikai-family
Popup dictionaries for browsers
- Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey: rikaichan or rikaisama fork that adds audio, more dictionaries, word frequency, pitch accents, advanced exporting/saving, export to Anki, specify the words you know/want to learn and more.
- Chrome: rikaikun
- Opera 12/legacy: Rikaisan
JED
- URL
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.umibouzu.jed
- Platform
Android.
- Ads
No
- Price
- Free
Offline dictionary. Doesn't seem to be updated anymore.
- Search while you type (in readings, meanings).
- Can search in romaji and kana/kanji.
- Japanese to many languages (english, spanish, french).
- Tags.
- Export to GDocs or Anki.
- Copy to clipboard.
- Sentences examples.
Akebi
- URL
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.craxic.akebifree
- Platform
Android.
- Ads
No
- Price
- Free
Offline dictionary.
- Stroke-order independent handwriting recognition
- Example sentences (320k+)
- Character mask (to filter words, using radicals)
- Free search form: characters appear in any part of the word
- Word lists: collect words for easy access, flashcards or exporting
- Inbuilt Japanese Keyboard (can be disabled)
- Kanji info
- Search in English-Japanese; Japanese-English
- Kanji practice
- Deconjugation: search a conjugated verb and shows results in its plain form.
- Holo theme
If you can't download the dictionary, download from https://www.mediafire.com/?qm4mitknkxxa77o and uncompress it in sdcard or internal/Android/obb/
. You must end up with something like: sdcard/Android/obb/com.craxic.akebifree/main.33.com.craxic.akebifree.obb
Note: I upload it because the official site (to download) is "dead" (http://craxic.com/akebi/files/)
Jisho.org
- URL
- Platform
- Online
- Shows example sentences
- Shows common words
- Shows JLPT levels and WaniKani
- Play words audio
Tangorin
- URL
- Platform
- Online
- Shows example sentences
- Can create word lists to export
- Shows common words
Practice
Obenkyo
- URL
- Platform
Android.
- Ads
Yes: Ads and Analytics. However, can be disabled in settings.
- Price
- Free
Android app to practise/learn kana, kanji and vocabulary (incl. numbers).
- Kanji: 2300+ (1-5 JLPT level or Jouyou 1-7), stroke animation, readings. Flashcards/writing.
- Vocabulary: 14600+ from EDICT with flashcard.
- Particles: experimental (about 100 sentences)
- Tae Kim Japanese Grammar guide.
OCR
Capture2text
- URL
- Plataform
Windows
- Code
Open
- Price
- Free
- OCR from many languages (by default comes with japanese, english, french, chinese, german and spanish)
- Speech recognition via Google
- Copy to clipboard, popup window, where the cursor is, to a window (ex. Notepad++, Sublime Text)
- Graphically and command line.
OCR Manga Reader
- URL
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cb4960.ocrmr
- Plataform
Android
- Ads
No
- Code
Open
- Price
- Free
- Comic/manga reader with OCR to search words in a dictionary, popup style.
- Formats: CBZ, CBR, ZIP, RAR, PNG, JPG, BMP
- Vertical or horizontal text.
- OCR'd text can be sent to clipboard, Aedict, AnkiDroid, many online dictionaries, Google and Google Images.
Reading
Programs that help you read texts: load it (usually .txt) y mark the words you know or want to learn and export them. The unknown words can be searched with the "popup" dictionary provided, can be clicking or hovering.
Yomichan
- URL
- Platform
Multiplatform.
- Code
Open
- Price
- Free
- Anki plugin
- Included dictionary searching (EDICT, KANJIDICT).
- Very confortable if you save the vocabulary/sentences to anki. You can also copy them to the clipboard.
- Doesn't highlight the words you know.
- Only for Japanese
LWT (Learning with Texts)
- URL
- Platform
Multiplatform
- Code
Open
- Price
- Free
- Installs to a server with PHP and MySQL
- For many languages
- Must configurate dictionaries to use (you have some included) and appears as popup.
- Statistics page.
- Export to TSV: words and expressions
- Import known words in CSV/TSV.
- Words highlighting (known or not), by grade (different colors)
fltr (Foreign Language Text Reader)
- URL
- Platform
Multiplatform
- Code
Open
- Price
- Free
- Like LWT but in Java and plain files.
- No built-in dictionary (opens browser with the assigned dictionary). You have some included.
- Highlights the words (known or not) with different colors by grade.
- Export to TSV.
- Importar a CSV with known words or load a text and click in "I know all of them"
- For many languages
- Basic statistics.
- The logo is a 招き猫
Jade Reader
- URL
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zyz.mobile
- Plataform
Android
- Code
Open
- Price
- Free
- Plain text reader (.txt)
- Offline Japanese-English dictionary
- Export words or copy to clipboard
- Horizontal/vertical mode
- Automatically de-inflect verbs, adjectives
Others
iAnnotate PDF
- URL
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.branchfire.iannotate
- Plataform
Android
- PDF reader with option to annotate, manage and search documents
- Can save annotations to Box Onecloud
- Open multiple files (in tabs)
- Can highlight text, write and comment on the document
Kana, Kanji
Kana
Any book to learn kana is not worth it
- There aren't many: 48 hiragana and 48 "official" katakana.
- Vocabulary tought can be learnt in another textbook.
- It's better to learn them by rewriting/memorizing them with SRS/Flashcards (or both).
- Few + highly used = you learn them quickly.
- If you use a textbook, you can learn them with it.
Kanji
Remembering the Kanji
- Method
Mnemonic
- Kanji count
2042 kanji, including 常用漢字 + 965 from the third, add up 3007
- Vocabulary
No
- Excercises
No
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- You can use it to not fear the kanji and don't panic when you see one with many strokes.
- Kanji are presented as building upon previous already learnt kanji
- Doesn't teach readings (RTK 2). RTK 3 has some kanji that, if you get the new version (6th), shouldn't be so necessary, because includes some obscure kanji.
- No so recommended if you don't care the how-to-write part (You can learn the basic rules and write most of the kanji with that).
- Not all the characters have stories, about half-way onwards you have to create them yourself.
It's recommended (if you have old versions from the 6th): delete unnecessary kanji of the first and third version or download the anki deck.
Kanji Damage
- Method
Mnemonic
- Kanji count
1,700 kanji in a funny way ("Yo Mama jokes")
- URL
- Vocabulary
Yes
- Excercises
No
- Price
- Free
- Alternative to RTK
- Aids to tell apart similar kanji.
- Readings
- Learn with radicals
Smart Kanji Book
- Method
Mnemonic
- Kanji count
most 732 important/popular kanji.
- URL
- Vocabulary
Yes
- Excercises
No
- Price
- Paid. There's a free sample of 140
- Alternative to RTK
- Funny stories and all the characters have.
Basic Kanji Book
- Method
Rote repetition: write X times
- Kanji count
500 (both vols.)
- Vocabulary
yes
- Excercises
yes
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- Learn kanji with reading and stroke order
- Explains a bit of grammar.
- In basic kanji shows the image that was based on.
Kanji in MangaLand
- Method
Mnemonic
- Kanji count
240 in the first
- Vocabulary
Yes
- Excercises
Yes
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- The "Remembering the kanji" but manga oriented: has a "drawing" explaining the kanji, associated story and stroke order.
- Similar kanji list and reading.
- Vocabulary manga oriented ("fantasy" words)
Kanji De Manga
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- Like above but poorer.
- kanji and stroke order
- Vocabulary
- Cartoon with a dialogue using the kanji you're learning.
- Skip it, doesn't worth it.
A Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese
- Method
Repetition
- Kanji count
1945
- Vocabulary
Yes
- Excercises
No
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- The most 1006 essential kanji broken into six grades.
- Readings (most common) and meaning
- Word examples
- Stroke order and count.
- Kana tables
- I don't recommend it
Grammar
Japanese in Mangaland/Japonés en viñetas 1
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- You can use it as a introduction to the language or as a companion to another textbook.
- Basic stuff like writing, greetings, conjugations, a bit of vocabulary (with kanji), cultural notes, etc, with cartoons to illustrate examples.
- The vocabulary, being manga oriented, will have words not common for everyday usage
- Some typos and corny humor.
- Workbook (first book): plain and manga oriented.
- 160 kanji
- Good to learn "informal" Japanese.
Genki
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- Focus on grammar and basic vocabulary.
- Listening and workbook.
- Good book to study by yourself, but you have to skip the group excercises.
- Vocabulary: school oriented.
- Story about Mary as a student.
- "Many voices" in the listening (like 3-4 for Japanese); it's basically in English: this can be good in the beginning.
- In the listening of the workbook, sometimes, you have to answer in English.
Japonés con Yumiko
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- Don't even bother.
- The only thing that can be worth is the travel guide, but you can get it somewhere else.
Reading
The Great ChokoChoko Library
- URL
- Price
Free
Free texts to practise reading accoring to JLPT level. Recommended.
Japanese Graded Readers
- URL
- Price
Paid
- Level
- All
Audio-books in different levels (JLPT). Recommended. Also has iPad versions.
Other resources
Guía práctica de conversación: español - japonés
- Metadata
- Price
- Paid
- Quick guide, basic grammar and much vocabulary.
- It's not so bad for the vocabulary/sentences.
- "spanish" ("españolizado") romaji
- Typos in romaji, kanji, pronunciations, etc.
- Seems that the back dictionary is not complete with all the used words in the book.
Tanos
- URL
- Price
Free
- Content
- JLPT lists
- Not official lists for JLPT
- Lists for kanji, vocabulary and grammar points
- Links to examples
- Lists can be downloaded as .pdf, .doc, .mem and .anki
My grammar notes (spanish)
My japanese grammar notes in spanish
Changes
- misc fixes; add online dictionaries (jisho, tangorin); add my grammar notes; add Japanese Graded Readers
- Add Tanos, A Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese; reorder; links to metadata
- Update info.
- Add Akebi, Jade, iAnnotate.
- Add OCR.
How to comment
- Tweet with an URL to this post (
http://blog.aquinzi.com/japanese-resources/
) - Write a post linking here and send me a Webmention.
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