Japanese learning resources

Various resoruces you might find helpful in your quest to learn Japanese. Please add anything helpful you’ve found (prefrably in the right section). Entries should include the name of the resource, where to find it, how much it is, and a brief summary of what it is and what it does.

Add any brief comments you might have as to how useful you found it afterwards. If you want to write a full review, do it on a seperate page and link to it from here.

Japanese for Busy People The text book that was (and proably still is) used in the frist year of the UoW Language Centre’s Japanese leisure course.There is also a romaji version if you’re frightened of kana, although there is a kana workbook to help you learn them.

Also availible are volume 2, volume 3, and various things like workbooks and audio casettes/CDs.

Colin: A fairly decent seres from what I’ve seen, although it’s aimed at people wanting to learn Japanese for use the workplace. There’s plenty of other stuff there, but if you’re not following a course you might find something else more interesting.

みんなの日本語(Minna no Nihongo) The first thing you will notice about this book is that the title is in Japanese. The second thing you will notice is that the entirety of the rest of it is too. As such it’s probably more suited to a class where you have a teacher to tell you what’s going on. There are plenty of pictures, however, so if you’ve managed to learn the kana you could probably struggle through it. There is also a book of translation and gramatical notes availible, which does have English explanations.

Colin: It’s quite good, but the lack of any English to explain things makes it difficult to recommend, especially to a beginner. The notes book would help this, but I’m not sure how much.

Kanji Learner's Dictionary The non-traditional methd of kanji lookup used here is easy to learn and simple to use, which is very helpful when you’re trying to look up a set of characters you’re probably hard pressed to write. Provides a single core English meaning, common readings, stroke-order diagrams, and common compounds the kanji is used in.

Colin: It is, as it says, a dictionary for learners. Containing a “mere” 2230 kanji, it is fairly small by kanji dictionary standards, but it provides a lot of information on the ones that are present. Just bear in mind that it is a dictionary, and just because it’s aimed at learners doesn’t mean it’s really going to help you learn the kanji.

WWWJDIC A very helpful web-based dictionary. Traslates words both ways, has various ways of finding kanji, and all sorts of other things. It’s also free to use, which is nice.

Colin: As long as you’re at a computer, this is a very useful dictionary, either for translating words or looking up kanji. Not flawless, but ever so helpful.