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TEAM JAPANESE: READERS FOR ALL LEVELS OF JAPANESE

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TEAM JAPANESE: READERS FOR ALL LEVELS OF JAPANESE

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FREE WEBSITES FOR JAPANESE READING PRACTICE (AT EVERY LEVEL)

Want to get better at Japanese?

Reading is one of the best ways to improve your language skills.

It’s especially important to read a lot when you’re learning a language with a different writing system, like Japanese.

Hiragana, katakana and kanji can be overwhelming at first. But with enough reading practice, reading these characters will become natural!

Reading consolidates all that vocabulary and grammar you’ve spent all that time learning. When you come across new words in a story or article, it’s much easier to remember.

And best of all, it’s free!

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Team Japanese uses affiliate links. That means that if you purchase something through a link on this site, we may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).

Want to get better at Japanese?

Reading is one of the best ways to improve your language skills.

It's especially important to read a lot when you're learning a language with a different writing system, like Japanese.

Hiragana, katakana and kanji can be overwhelming at first. But with enough reading practice, reading these characters will become natural!

Reading consolidates all that vocabulary and grammar you've spent all that time learning. When you come across new words in a story or article, it's much easier to remember.

And best of all, it's free!

So if you're wondering how to learn Japanese effectively, I really do recommend making regular time to read.

Here's a selection of great websites for completely free Japanese reading practice online, whatever your level:

Japanese reading practice for beginners

If you're a beginner, you'll probably want to stick to resources in hiragana only.

(Not sure what hiragana is? First check out my post on how to read Japanese for a quick introduction to the Japanese writing systems!)

Tadoku literally means 'read a lot', and the idea behind this site is that reading a lot is the best way to learn Japanese! Tadoku provides dozens of free, simple picture books for students of Japanese.

The site is all in Japanese, but don't panic! It's not hard to navigate. For beginner Japanese reading material, look for those marked with the blue 'L0' towards the top of the page. Click on a book cover that catches your attention. On the next page, click on the grey box labelled 'READ FOR FREE' (in English). Enjoy!
Hukumusume
Hukumusume is a site full of traditional Japanese children's stories.

It's is an absolutely huge site and it is written for Japanese children (not language students), so it can be a bit confusing to navigate. I recommend that beginners start with this page which has four stories written in hiragana with English translations.

Once you've read those, you can explore the rest of the stories here. Most of them don't have English translations, but they are written in very simple Japanese so you can have a go at translating them yourself!

This page lists the stories by Japanese school year. Start with １ねんせい (1 st grade, which uses hiragana only) and work up to 6 th grade as you learn more kanji!

Many of the stories also have audio or video tracks.
Crunchy Nihongo's hiragana stories
Here's a very simple site for Japanese reading practice in hiragana only. Scroll to the bottom of the linked page and you will find links to several Japanese fairy tales, written in very simple Japanese. There is the option to show or hide romaji and English translation line by line.
EhonNavi
EhonNavi is an amazing site that lets you read hundreds of different Japanese children's picture books, all for free! Unlike the above sites, there are lots of modern books (not just traditional tales). You can browse books by age, from 0 up to 12. Yes, there are even books for babies with just one of two words per page, making this a great resource even for complete beginners!

The only downside is that you have to register. The whole site is in Japanese, so it's a bit difficult for beginners. Here you can find fantastic instructions with screenshots to help you get set up.
CosCom News
It's unusual to find reading materials for beginners that aren't children's books, but I managed it! This site publishes very short news articles in simple Japanese. You can click the buttons at the top to switch between romaji, hiragana, and full Japanese (with kanji).

You can also download a pdf of the article if you want to write notes. Key vocabulary is listed in English below.

The 'Tenki Yohoo' (weather forecast) and 'Short News' sections contain very short articles for beginners. The 'Japan News and World News' section has slightly longer articles. Only the most recent article in each section is available for free. You can also pay for membership to read the archives.

The author of this site is a high school Japanese teacher who writes simple stories as Japanese reading practice for their students. There are some made up stories and also some traditional Japanese children's stories, rewritten in simple Japanese. The stories contain some kanji with furigana (pronunciation guide in hiragana). Each story comes with a vocab list, a sound recording and a downloadable pdf. Thank you Matthew for sharing!

Another source for Japanese children's picture books online. This site is not so user-friendly, but I included it as an extra resource in case you have problems with the above sites.

Just click on an image to go to the book. Then click the yellow 'next' button at the top to turn the pages.

One problem with this site is that the writing is an image file, so you can't copy and paste words to look in a dictionary. You can increase the text size from the homepage.

At the intermediate level, you will be able to understand longer sentences and more difficult works. You can also read some kanji. You need some reading resources that introduce these features of the language, but you still need a bit of help understanding new words.

We have just the thing for you! Here are some sites for Japanese reading practice for intermediate students:
Hirogaru
Hirogaru is a cute site for Japanese learners. It has short texts and videos on lots of different topics. In particular, it has a lot of articles on traditional Japanese culture, such as calligraphy, tea ceremony and martial arts. There are vocabulary lists (with English translations) of key words for each topic.
Matcha
Matcha is a cool Japanese travel and culture magazine. It's available in 10 different languages, including an easy Japanese version! (My link will take you directly to the 'easy Japanese' site.) It does use kanji but always with furigana (pronunciation guides) above.

Most of the articles are available in English too. You can read the English version afterwards to check your understanding (use the drop down bar at the bottom of the page to change the language). Be careful though, because the translations aren't always the same word-for-word.
Watanoc
Watanoc is a 'free web magazine in simple Japanese'. The name comes from 'wa' (Japanese) 'tanoshii' (fun). It has a lot of articles of different lengths and different levels, so it's suitable from beginners to intermediate. The topics include food, culture, events and funny news. After each title, it tells you the approximate JLPT reading level (N5 is the easiest). Also, if you hover your mouse over a word, it will pop up with an explanation in English! Highly recommended for upper beginners and lower intermediate.
NHK News Web Easy
NHK is Japan's national news service. On this site, you can read NHK's top news stories each day in simple Japanese. It's aimed at Japanese elementary school children, as well as foreigners learning Japanese.

The site has furigana on the kanji, and Japanese dictionary definitions that pop up when you hover over a word. Many of the stories have videos too.

You can toggle furigana on and off using the blue button at the top of each article labelled 感じの読み方を消す. And, if you're feeling up for a challenge, you can view the original NHK version of the article by clicking the blue button at the bottom labelled 普通のニュウスを読む.

The site has several new stories each day. If you enjoy reading about current affairs, this is a good site for you.
Yahoo Kids
Short news articles, school lessons, games and bulletin boards in simple Japanese, aimed at elementary school kids. There is no furigana on the kanji so this might be a bit advanced for some users.
Hiragana Times
Hiragana Times is a magazine that publishes articles about Japan in simple Japanese with furigana, alongside an English translation. You have to subscribe for full access, but you can read selected sample articles on the main website here. You can toggle furigana, romaji and English on and off using the 'あ' button to the left hand side. You can also download a free sample magazine here.
Nippon Talk
This is a blog about many aspects of everyday life in Japan. Each paragraph is written in Japanese, with translation in English underneath. A small number of posts have French translations, too. You can choose to turn the furigana on or off. Unfortunately the blog is no longer updated, but there are several years of posts to read through.
Wasabi (Fairy Stories)
A small collection of Japanese fairy stories with furigana, audio, vocabulary lists and English translations. You can play the audio at different speeds, so this is also a useful site to practise reading aloud and work on your pronunciation! The Japanese texts contain kanji and a bit more advanced than the children's stories in the beginner section above.
Wasabi (Manga)
This is from the same site as above but I wanted to list it separately because it's so useful. If you dream of reading Japanese manga in the original, but you need some extra help, this is a great place to start. On this page you can read Give My Regards to Black Jack, a bestselling Japanese manga about a young doctor. Alongside the original manga, there is the Japanese script with English translation and language notes.
Bunsuke's Newsletter
Bunsuke publishes short snippets from famous Japanese writers, together with a vocab list and translation. This is an excellent way for intermediate learners to dip their toes into reading Japanese literature in the original version, without overwhelm. You might even discover some favourite works to explore further!

Previously, Bunsuke sent out his snippets every day in an email newsletter. The daily emails are paused for now, but you can read all previous newsletters in his Substack archive. He also runs occasional interactive reading challenges.

Advanced Japanese reading practice

If you are an advanced Japanese learner, I recommend using real Japanese materials as much as possible. By this I mean books and articles written for native Japanese speakers - not for language learners.

The ultimate goal is to speak fluent Japanese, the way native speakers do. You will learn the most natural language by using real life sources.

The good news is, it's incredibly easy to find real life Japanese resources online! You can also find resources on literally any topics.

I recommend thinking about what you read in your native language for fun. What do you read in your spare time, just because you love it? Find the Japanese version of that! This means you'll be more likely to stick with it. Plus, you'll learn new words specific to your hobbies and interests.

This is also a good time to change your phone, computer, Facebook settings into Japanese and create an immersion environment.

Here are a few websites to start you off. I tried to choose a selection of websites from different genres. Remember, this list is just to give you some ideas! When you know advanced Japanese, you can read whatever you want 🙂

News

NHK - the Japanese national broadcaster. As well as reading the news online, you can stream radio and watch some TV shows (might be blocked depending on location)

Yomiuri Shimbun - national newspaper (conservative)

Mainichi Shimbun - national newspaper (moderate/left leaning)

Asahi Shimbun - national newspaper (left leaning)

Books

Aozora Bunko - free digital copies of books for which the copyright has expired

Project Gutenberg (Japanese) - another site for free out-of-copyright books

Shousetsuka ni narou - a site where budding authors publish their work online for free to get reviews

University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative - a huge library of Japanese texts online, and you can even choose to read with furigana

Bookwalker - Bookwalker is a Japanese ebook store and app. They specialise in manga and light novels. Although you have to pay for most of the content, they have a large selection of volumes (mostly manga) that you can download for free. Just look for the section marked 無料.

Also, you can usually read several pages of other (paid) books on the site for free. This is good if you want to try out some Japanese reading materials in different styles or by different authors. Just look for the 試し読み button on the product page.

Note that there is an English version of the website, but this will only show you English language books. You need to navigate the website in Japanese to download Japanese books ( tutorial on how to sign up).

Bauddha - This website publishes bilingual stories and excerpts from famous writings, political speeches and other sources. You can read the Japanese version alongside the English version. This website is actually for Japanese learners of English, not the other way around! The language level here is quite advanced because the writings are mostly literary classics.

Manga

Comicwalker - free manga from the publisher Kadokawa. You can read the comics online, or there's an app too. Look for the ones with the red ​​無料マンガ (free manga) triangle. From the same people as BookWalker above but it has some different content.

Shonen Jump - the best selling manga magazine in Japan. On their website you can read their latest manga instalments and also news articles about new releases and so on.

Sai Zen Sen - you can read some Japanese manga online for free

Comico - another site with some free Japanese manga to read online

Social

Yahoo Questions - sure, Yahoo Questions has died out in the West but the Japanese version is still going strong - in fact, it's one of the most popular forums on the Japanese internet. It's a good way to get used to reading casual Japanese and hearing Japanese people's viewpoints on all kinds of issues.

Oshiete! Goo - another popular forum for questions and answers.

Ameblo - a Japanese personal blogging platform similar to Blogspot or Livejournal. You can browse blogs and articles by topic.

Twitter - the biggest social media platform in Japan (after messaging app LINE). It's a great way to get some reading practice in bite-sized chunks! You could start by following your favourite Japanese celebrities or search for your interests/interesting hashtags in Japanese. Or, check out the website Togetter, which rounds up popular threads and topics from Japanese Twitter.

Anonymous Diary - a simple bulletin board/forum where people can post anonymously. It's a mixed bag - some posts are just random thoughts, but since it's anonymous, there are lots of controversial takes and secret confessions too.

Girls Channel - a bulletin board, kind of like Reddit but just for girls. Good for learning internet slang and girls' talk.

Mixi - a Japanese social network. You can read news articles and some public threads without signing up. There are communities on different topics similar to Reddit. It's not as popular as it used to be but there is still plenty of content for free Japanese reading practise.

Magazines, lifestyle and more

Japanese magazine lists - This site and this one have huge lists of popular Japanese magazines with links to their websites. They are mostly fashion magazines but there are some in other categories such as business, tech and travel. Note that the amount of free content varies by site; some have a lot of free articles online whereas others just want you to buy the print magazine.

Rocket News - short funny news articles on topics such as pop culture, viral content, new releases etc.

Hatena Bookmarking - a social bookmarking site. Users share interesting articles from around the web.

1000moji - user-submitted short stories in 1000 characters

Pouch - Pouch describe themselves as offering 'cute, fun, weird' content for women! It's a round-up of content on popular culture, cute items, trending internet stuff, random blog articles and more.

Kinarino - women's lifestyle blog covering food, fashion, travel, interiors and more

CanCam - a popular Japanese women's fashion magazine

Lifehacker - interesting tips and tricks, and tech news

Toyo Keizai - a well-known business and finance magazine

BuzzFeed Japan - you probably know this one! Funny and interesting things from around the internet

The Rising Wasabi - satirical news site

Nippon.com - news about and from Japan. Many articles are also available in English (and other languages) so you can switch to check your comprehension.

Note - a Japanese magazine style site as recommended by our reader Erik. It covers lifestyle, education, culture, work and more. Content is user generated and very varied.

Orange Page - one of the biggest Japanese cooking sites. Love Japanese food? Why not kill two birds with one stone and learn to cook some Japanese dishes while you get your Japanese reading practise! In addition to recipes, they also publish some lifestyle articles.

VNs - VNs or Visual Novels are interactive games with lots of text. They are like a cross between novels and games. Personally I have never played one but I have heard some people swear by them to improve their Japanese reading, so I thought I'd give them a shout out here! Freem and Novel Game have lots of free Japanese VNs. Here is a blog all about learning Japanese with VNs.

Browser extensions for reading Japanese online

No doubt about it, learning to read in Japanese in slower than most other languages simply because of the Japanese writing system! I just wanted to finish off by sharing a few useful browser extensions that can help you read Japanese websites.

Rikaikun (for Chrome) - hover over any Japanese word and a dictionary box will pop up.

Yomichan (for Firefox) - same as above.

Furigana Extension (for Chrome) - adds furigana (pronunciation guide) to kanji.

Furigana (for Firefox) - same as above.

There are dozens of similar extensions out there but these are some of the top recommended!

More free resources to learn Japanese

And finally, if you enjoyed this list, please check out my other round-ups of free native materials to practise Japanese:
Do you know any other good sources for free Japanese reading practice online? Please share in the comments!

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FREE Websites for Japanese Reading Practice (At Every Level)

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Looking for free Japanese reading practice online? Check out out monster list of websites and resources for beginners, intermediate and advanced learners!

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MLC - JLPT Quizzes (Kanji, Grammar, Hiragana/Katakana)

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MLC - JLPT Quizzes (Kanji, Grammar, Hiragana/Katakana)

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JLPT Grammar Quiz N5: ＿に何を入れますか。いちばん　いいものを　一つえらんでください。

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Current events, News articles

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NEWS WEB EASYは、小学生・中学生の皆さんや、日本に住んでいる外国人のみなさんに、わかりやすいことば　でニュースを伝えるウェブサイトです。

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にほんごたどく｜NPO多言語多読

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the Japanese Book-Reading Club

Want to read Japanese books? Join us if you know a little Hiragana. Booktalks after reading can be fun as well!
Saturdays 15:30～17:00 @Shinjuku
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You read a lot, talk a lot, and write a lot to begin and improve your Japanese.

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Tadoku recommends everyone to start with extremely easy books that are both enjoyable and informative. They come with many pictures and audio recording so you don't have to have Japanese at all at the start. You will enjoy them so much that you will want to read more.

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Japanistry.com - Grammar, Vocabulary, Kanji Quiizes

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Japanistry.com - Grammar, Vocabulary, Kanji Quiizes

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There are two types of quizzes below: (1) multiple choice and (2) free-form answers which require you to be able to input hiragana on your computer. There is no official kanji list for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) examinations (the lists that do exist on the internet are all taken from the pre-2010 examinations before the system changed), but for the N5 test you need to know about 100 and another 200 for the N4 test.

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There are two types of quizzes below: (1) multiple choice and (2) free-form answers which require you to be able to input hiragana on your computer. There is no official kanji list for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) examinations (the lists that do exist on the internet are all taken from the pre-2010 examinations before the system changed), but for the N5 test you need to know about 100 and another 200 for the N4 test. As there is no official list, I have used the ordering of the kanji in the book【留学生のための漢字の教科書 初級 300】("Kanji Textbook for Foreign Students, Beginner Level 300") as this just so happens to be the book my girlfriend is using to study.

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Japanese Grammar, Vocabulary, Kanji Quizzes | japanistry.com

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There are two types of quizzes below: (1) multiple choice and (2) free-form answers which require you to…

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Japanese IO - Learn Japanese through fun and easy reading practice

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Learn Japanese through fun and easy reading practice. Look up words and kanji with a single click. Review vocabulary and export to Anki/SRS. Free with paid upgrades.

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Marshall's Blog - JLPT N5 practice tests

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Marshall's Blog - JLPT N5 practice tests

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Hirogaru - A breadth of readings on Japan and the Japanese Language

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Hirogaru - A breadth of readings on Japan and the Japanese Language

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From the Japan Foundation

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日本語学習ウェブサイト「ひろがる」

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日本語学習ウェブサイト「ひろがる」

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日本語学習ウェブサイト「ひろがる」は、国際交流基金関西国際センターが制作した無料日本語学習サイトです。趣味などの自分の楽しみを通して日本語と異文化理解能力の育成を支援するサイトです。

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Japaanese Listening and typing trainer.

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Reminders of what we've done in class.

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This is completely understandable considering how fundamentally different it is to other languages, but the truth is that Japanese grammar is actually incredibly logical - it just needs to be looked at from the right angle.

Usually, the basic structure of Japanese sentences is considered to be SOV - subject-object-verb (eg. sushiobject ). This description makes it easier to compare with English, for example, which follows an SVO structure, but the truth is, this comparison is mostly meaningless because the two languages function in completely different ways. The SOV label is also wrong sometimes, as it is not uncommon in Japanese to see sentences with the object appearing before the subject. No wonder it seems so confusing...

Instead of trying to fit a Japanese-shaped peg into an English-shaped hole, let's start again.

Firstly, in English, the main pieces of a sentence go in a specific order. The person doing the action (the subject, eg. I) is first, followed by the word that describes the action (the verb, eg. eat), then the thing that the action is done to (the object, eg. sushi). In English, it is the word order that tells us who did what.

Japanese sentences are structured around grammatical markers called 'particles'. Each particle indicates how the word before it relates to other words in the sentence, usually to the verb. The verb appears last, but the order of the other words can vary because it is the particles, not word order, that tell us who did what.

For example, a basic sentence might have a topic (which is often the same as the subject) followed by the particle 'wa', then an object with the particle 'wo', and finally the verb. This basic word ordering is why Japanese is often considered an SOV language, but as long as the right particles are used with the right words, the actual order of the words can be changed.

In this article, I break it all down and show you exactly how Japanese sentences work, using plenty of examples and charts showing very clearly how Japanese sentences are structured. Every aspect of Japanese grammar fits within the structure outlined below.

Let's get to it!

Basic "desu" 「です」 sentences

Let's start by looking at basic sentences that use the special verb "desu" 「です」 (pronounced "dess"), which is effectively equivalent to the English verb "be" (am, are, is).

Sentences using "desu" 「です」 usually follow this basic structure:
[topic] wa は ... (something that describes the topic) ... desu です
Here are a few simple examples:

The first step to understanding this structure is knowing what "wa" 「は」 is.

"Wa" 「は」 (pronounced "wa") is what is known as a particle. Particles are like markers that identify what role each word or phrase plays within a sentence.
The particle "wa" 「は」 tells us that the word or phrase before it is the topic of that sentence.
The topic is basically the thing that is being talked about in that sentence, and usually appears near the beginning. In our examples above, the things that are being talked about are "I", "this", and "the car", respectively, so the topics of these sentences in Japanese are "watashi", kore" and "kuruma".

The topic of a Japanese sentence is very similar to what other languages refer to as the subject. The subject of a sentence is the person or thing that does the action described by the main verb in the sentence. These are, in fact, slightly different concepts, but for now, we will treat them as being the same so as to keep things simple.

Particles like "wa" 「は」 do not exist in English, but they are the backbone of Japanese grammar. We'll look at particles in more detail soon.

These sentences also show us another important rule that applies to all Japanese sentences:
The main verb comes at the end of the sentence.
In all of the above examples, that verb is "desu" 「です」, which takes the form of "is" or "am" in the English translations. However, this rule also applies for other verbs, which we will look at shortly.

First, let's take another look at the first two sentences above. Text with the same formatting has the same meaning.

First of all, we can see that "wa" 「は」 has no English equivalent. This is because its entire purpose is to show that "watashi" or "kore" 「これ」 is the topic of these sentences. That is, "wa" 「は」 defines these words as the topic. In English, there is no need for a particle like "wa" 「は」 because the subject of a sentence can be determined based on the word order. We'll look at this more closely in the next section.

Secondly, since "hito" means "person" and "kuruma" means "car", we can see that there is no Japanese equivalent of "a".
The articles "a", "an" and "the" do not exist in Japanese.
What this means is that the sentences, "This is a car", and, "This is the car", would both be, "kore wa kuruma desu". There is no differentiation.

This makes things simpler in some ways, but can be hard to get used if you've spent your entire life speaking English or similar languages, as not having these words can sometimes make a sentence feel incomplete. Without them, it can be hard to know if someone is referring to a specific car, or just any car. There are other ways to specify which car is being talked about, but in many cases, this is implied purely by context. This is something you will get used to over time.

We now know three very important rules relating to Japanese sentence structure:

The particle "wa" 「は」 identifies the topic of a sentence

The verb comes at the end of the sentence

The articles "a", "an" and "the" do not exist in Japanese

These rules apply to everything, so using the first two in particular, we can adapt our sentence structure model from earlier to this:
[topic] wa は ... (other information) ... [verb]
When the verb is "desu" 「です」, the 'other information' can just be a noun (kore wa kuruma desu) or adjective (kuruma wa akai desu). In fact, the last thing immediately before "desu" 「です」 should be either a noun or an adjective.

For verbs other than "desu" 「です」, however, basically everything in the 'other information' section needs to be accompanied by a particle.

How particles work

The main thing that differentiates Japanese from most other languages is its use of particles. We've already seen the particle "wa" 「は」, but there are many more particles, and a proper understanding of what they are and how to use them will make the Japanese language much easier to decipher.

As stated earlier:
Particles are like markers that tell us the role each word plays in a sentence.
In any language, a combination of words only makes sense if the role of each word is clear. The biggest difference between Japanese and English (and many other languages) is how these roles are defined.

First, let's understand what is meant by 'the role each word plays in a sentence'.

In English, for the main elements in a sentence, this role is determined by word order. Here's a very basic example:

Taro saw Noriko.

This sentence has three words: Taro, saw and Noriko. The central word in any sentence, in both English and Japanese, is the main verb, which in this case is "saw". The other words in a sentence always relate to the main verb, either directly or indirectly, so every sentence must have a main verb.

To figure out what the role of each of the other words is, we look at the word order:

"Taro" comes before "saw", which tells us that Taro is the one that saw something.

"Noriko" comes after "saw", which tells us that Noriko is the thing that was seen.

If we change the order and put "Noriko" first, we end up with the sentence:

Noriko saw Taro.

This has an entirely different meaning because changing the word order changes the role that each word plays, which in turn, changes the overall meaning of the sentence.

Japanese is different. In Japanese, particles determine the role of each word in a sentence.

Given that the Japanese word for "saw" is "mimashita", we would normally write the above sentence as:

This sentence has two particles:

In more general terms:

wa は defines the 'topic' of a sentence, which is usually the person or thing that performed the main action being described

wo を , pronounced "o", defines to whom or to what that action was done, which is known as the 'object' of the verb

Importantly, particles define the role of the word that comes before them. In the above example:

The word before "wa" 「は」 is "Tarō" 「たろう」, so we know that Taro is the person who performed the act of seeing.

The word before "wo" 「を」 is "Noriko" 「のりこ」, so we know that Noriko is the 'thing' that was seen.

If we put this all together, it means: Taro saw Noriko.

Because of particles like these, word order is not as important as it is in English. In Japanese, we can actually change the order of the words without changing the fundamental meaning of the sentence, as long as the same particles are paired with the same words. Both of the following mean effectively the same thing:

These two sentences both mean "Taro saw Noriko". The word order doesn't affect the fundamental meaning because the particles tell us what each word in the sentence does.

That said, we wouldn't normally use sentence two above because, as our sentence structure model shows, the topic is usually near the beginning of the sentence. This is not a hard rule, but it is unnatural in most situations for the topic to be placed after other key elements in the same clause.

Defining different roles

In our basic example sentence involving Taro and Noriko, the only roles that have actually been defined are the topic (Taro) and the object (Noriko).

These, together with the verb, are the three most important pieces of information in a sentence. They tell us:

What action is done

Who does the action

To what or whom the action is done

Roughly when the action occurs (past, present, future etc. as defined by the verb tense)

Of course, there are many more pieces of information that can be added to a sentence.

Let's start by considering some basic information that relates directly to the action itself, such as:

When (more precisely) the action takes place

Where the action takes place

The destination of the action

The origin of the action

The means by which the action is done

When we include this information, we need to specify how that information relates to the other parts of the sentence, and to the main verb in particular.

Before we look at how this is done in Japanese, let's consider how the role of additional information is defined in English.

Defining roles in English

We know that the subject and the object are determined based on word order. For most additional information, however, word order alone is not enough - we need prepositions like "in", "on", "at", "to" and "from".

For example, we can't just say "Taro saw Noriko the library". We need a preposition to tell us how "the library" relates to everything else. The preposition we use depends on what role we want to attribute to "the library".

The diagram below shows some examples of how prepositions are used to define the relationship between different pieces of information and the action described by the main verb.

We can usually just add this additional information - together with the appropriate preposition - to the end of the sentence after the object. For example, to define the location where Taro saw Noriko, we could use the preposition "at" and insert it after "Noriko" (the object of the verb "saw"):

Taro saw Noriko at the library.

It can also go at the beginning of the sentence:

At the library, Taro saw Noriko.

Either way, the "at" is essential to understanding what role the library plays. Without it, we don't know if Taro saw Noriko at the library, in front of the library, on his way to the library, or while he was thinking about what he would do when he got to the library. The role needs to be defined.

Defining roles in Japanese

In Japanese, just as we did with the topic and the object, we define the roles of additional elements using particles. The Japanese version of the above diagram looks like this:

The first major difference, as we've already discussed, is that the topic and the object, like everything else, are determined by particles, not word order as they are in English.

Each of the elements - including the topic and object - need to be included in a sentence with the appropriate particle after them. There are a few exceptions to this (such as time words, where "ni" 「に」 is only required in some cases), but in general, particles are required.

To build a sentence, we just need to insert each piece of information - together with its particle - into the sentence structure we identified earlier:

[topic] wa は ... (other information) ... [verb]

Note that, as mentioned, the topic is only placed at the beginning of the sentence because that is its natural location in most situations. It is not, however, a requirement.

Let's do this with our example sentence:

Taro saw Noriko at the library.

We know that Taro is the topic, and the verb is saw (mimashita). The 'other information' is:

This fits into our diagram like so:

The 'other information' can go in basically any order, so we just need to insert it together with the appropriate particles:

Taro saw Noriko at the library.

To say that the order doesn't matter is oversimplifying things a little, as it does make a subtle difference to where the emphasis lies, and certain orderings are generally more natural than others. However, this is far less important than using the right particles, as using the wrong ones would change the meaning entirely. If we swap "wo" and "de", for example, we get:

Although grammatically correct, this obviously makes no sense. When it comes to the meaning of a sentence, particles are critical.

Now let's add another element and try building the following sentence in Japanese:

On Sunday, Taro saw Noriko at the train station

If we put this into our diagram, we get this:

As indicated, we attribute the particles as follows:

Using our three basic rules, we can then create our sentence to be any of the following:

There are other possible combinations too, and as long as all the pieces of information are followed by the correct particles, they are grammatically correct and have the same fundamental meaning.

Again, some orderings are more natural than others. For example, time phrases usually appear near the beginning of the sentence, so in most cases, the third option above is less preferable. Time phrases are also unique in that they often appear even before the topic, like so:

[time phrase] + [topic] wa は ... (other information) ... [verb]

This would make our example look like this:

The actual difference between this and the other orderings above is negligible. It's like the difference between the following:

On Sunday, Taro saw Noriko at the train station
Taro saw Noriko at the train station on Sunday

As you can see, the word order doesn't really affect the meaning.

Let's look at another example:
Taro went with Noriko from the train station to the library by car.
Here's the diagram for this:

This gives us:

Note that Noriko's role has changed from object to co-participant, hence the particle after her name has changed too. The same is true for eki.

Our sentence could be written as:

Again, these are all correct and have essentially the same meaning, with just a slight difference in emphasis.

Now let's look at another way that we can add more information to a sentence.

Expanding individual elements

An important point about the diagrams above are that they show the relationship between certain pieces of information and the main verb. This is because each of them relates directly to the action. For example:

We can, however, add other information that doesn't relate directly to the verb. Instead it relates specifically to one of the individual elements in the sentence.

The simplest example of this is adjectives.

In Japanese, adjectives are used in much the same way as they are in English - immediately before the noun they describe. (This is in addition to their use in simple sentences where the main verb is "desu" 「です」, such as "kuruma wa akai desu").

Let's take a shorter version of our sentence from earlier...

...and change it to specify that the car was blue:

(Note that in English, "by" changes to "in", but the meaning is essentially the same).

What we're essentially doing is expanding the individual element, "kuruma", to add more detail. In this case, the 'means of transport' has changed from "kuruma" to "aoi kuruma". When we do this, "aoi kuruma" as a whole should be marked by "de" 「で」, since "a blue car" is the means of transport, not just "a car".

This has no impact on the other parts of the sentence, so it fits into the diagram differently:

Expanding on a single noun like this creates what is called a noun phrase. A noun phrase is essentially a phrase that, as a whole, represents a single thing. Technically, "car" by itself is a noun phrase, but so are all of the following:

a car

a blue car

my car

my blue car

the blue car over there

the blue car that's always parked in the street next to the mailbox

All of these represent a single thing - a car - and can be substituted into sentences in the same way, like so:

He is driving a car.

He is driving my blue car.

He is driving the blue car that's always parked in the street next to the mailbox.

Noun phrases are just as common in Japanese as they are in English, and serve the same fundamental purpose - to add more information about a specific noun.

There are many different ways that noun phrases can be formed, in both English and Japanese. Another very common example is:

Taro went to the library in my car.

Here, we've taken the noun "car" and expanded on it to indicate that it belongs to 'me'. The result is the noun phrase, "my car", which in Japanese is:

This makes use of another very common particle: no の.
The particle "no" 「の」 indicates possession.
Effectively, "no" 「の」 converts "I", "you", "he", "she" and "they" into "my", "your", "his", "her" and "their", respectively. For other things like people's names, animals, places and objects, it has the same effect as adding "'s" (apostrophe s).

If instead we wanted to say "Taro's car", for example, we would say "Tarō no kuruma", with the "no" 「の」 indicating that the car belongs to Taro.

The one-size-fits-all way of defining "no" 「の」 would be to say it is equal to English "of ". For example, instead of "my car" or "Taro's car", "watashi no kuruma" and "Tarō no kuruma" could be thought of as "the car of me" or "the car of Taro".

"No" 「の」 can be used to connect just about any two things, where one of the two things belongs to the other in some way, such as "the back of the door", "the color of your eyes" or even "the rain of yesterday".

Now that we know this, let's substitute "watashi no kuruma" into our example sentence. First, here's the diagram:

This can be turned into the following:

Here, the means of transportation is "my car", so the noun phrase "watashi no kuruma" needs to be followed by .

It's important to note that even though "no" 「の」 is a particle, it cannot be moved around freely like the other particles we've looked at. This is because it is part of a noun phrase, and noun phrases cannot be separated. Doing so would be like separating "my" from "car". The result might be something like this:

If we want to change the word order, we can, but we need to move the whole noun phrase "watashi no kuruma", and the associated particle "de" 「で」, together as a single block. Here's one way we could do this:

This is true for any noun in any sentence. That is, any noun can be expanded into a more detailed noun phrase. The resulting noun phrase can then be used in the same way as the original noun, no matter what role that noun has in the sentence. It just has to be kept together as a single block.

For example, the destination could be changed from "the library" to "the university library":

Or "my car" could be used as the object, :

It can even be used as the topic:

Any noun, no matter where it is used, can be expanded as long as the resulting phrase is a valid noun phrase.

Our diagram can therefore be modified to look like this:

In Japanese, noun phrases are used in a lot of different ways, from simple examples like the ones above, to more complex expressions like:

The various ways of building different noun phrases and using them in sentences are covered in detail in my book, 80/20 Japanese. To read a free sample chapter from the book, .

Japanese sentence structure summary

The most important things to remember about Japanese sentence structure are:

The verb comes last

Particles define the roles of each of the different elements within a sentence

Word order is less important, and only influences the emphasis

Each noun in a sentence can be expanded into a more detailed noun phrase

It is usually more natural to put the topic and time phrases near the beginning of the sentence

The result is that basic sentences usually look like this, with the 'other information' appearing optionally and in any order:

This basic structure is the foundation of the entire Japanese language. If you understand this, Japanese will start to make a lot more sense.

What next?

You can learn more about particles, noun phrases and everything else essential to the Japanese language in my book, 80/20 Japanese. To receive a free sample chapter, .

Alternatively, learn how to enhance your sentences with adverbs, or learn more about what "desu" 「です」 means and how to use it correctly.

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Japanese Sentence Structure: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide - 80/20 Japanese

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In this article, I break down Japanese sentence structure and show you exactly how Japanese sentences work. A solid understanding of this will save you a huge amount of time trying to make sense of Japanese grammar.

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LingoDeer: Learn Japanese, Korean, Chinese and more languages

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Learn languages smarter, not harder! Rated 4.9/5, LingoDeer teaches languages most effectively through fun lessons created by real teachers!

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We'll give you questions from what we have studied so far. You have two answer choices for each question. Let's check with Anna and Rodrigo if you have learned Japanese expressions and grammar correctly.

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Easy Japanese 2015 - free lessons with audio drama | NHK WORLD RADIO JAPAN

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Japan's only public broadcaster NHK provides this reliable Japanese language course. You can easily start learning basic grammar and vocabulary.

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Learn Japanese anytime, anywhere.

Learn Japanese anytime, anywhere.

Self-Study Course

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At Minato, you can find friends to communicate with.

At Minato, you can find friends to communicate with.

Make friends of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds.

Minato has virtual communities where users from around the world can communicate with one another. Here, you can interact with friends of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds.

Your common topic is Japan.

Feel free to join the community with a focus on Japan (Japanese manga, Japanese TV dramas, Japanese cooking, tourist spots in Japan, Japanese traditional culture, methods of studying Japanese, and so on). If you can't find a theme that you're interested in, you can make your own community.

Beginners are welcome, too.

Communicate with the Japanese that you know. It's okay to use your own language too, if you're just starting out. Reach out to people using hiragana or romaji. After that, try out a bit of Japanese that you've just learned. It's a great challenge.

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JF Japanese e-Learning Minato is a Japanese language learning platform provided by the Japan Foundation. Minato means "port". Here at Minato, a place to learn and meet other like-minded people, we invite you to expand your understanding and knowledge of Japan, Japanese people, and the Japanese language.

Take various online Japanese courses.

On Minato, you'll find all sorts of Japanese online courses. With Minato's online Japanese courses you can start learning Japanese wherever you are, whenever you want to. Have you given up on learning because you can't find a class nearby? Are you too busy to commute? Just want to try it out but are a bit nervous? Well this is the place for you. Choose the level, course type, study category, and language of explanation that suits you and you're set to go.

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If you want to know more about Japan, get really into Japanese language, brush up your Japanese, or make friends with people around the world who speak Japanese, then this platform is for you. Start by signing up today.

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ERIN"S Challenge!!  Games, Dialog and more.

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Genki 1 and 2 Textbook/Workbook Resources

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Genki 1 and 2 Textbook/Workbook Resources

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Kanji Practice from Genki 1 and 2

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Self-study Room offers a variety of online materials to support your learning with GENKI textbooks.

No Illegal Uploading, Please!

GENKI Videos　げんきな動画

GENKI Dialogue Videos （げんき会話ビデオ）

Video Clips for Culture Note（Culture Noteのビデオクリップ）
Video clips related to "Culture Note" columns in the Dialogue & Grammar section of GENKI. All scenes were shot in Japan.
(by Elizabeth Armstrong/Eric Faden [Bucknell University])

GENKI Apps　げんきなアプリ

The official GENKI apps are excellent tools for firmly mastering vocabulary, kanji, and conjugation, with the aid of native recordings and fun illustrations

GENKI Drills　げんきなドリル

Sets of cards for studying GENKI are available through Quizlet at the links in the Drills column below.

Note that the audio pronunciations given on Quizlet are computer generated, and thus differ from the human recordings provided for GENKI app cards.

You can watch the Dialogue videos for each lesson by clicking the links in the Videos column on the right.

GENKI 1

GENKI 2

Drills

Videos

Lesson

Vocabulary

Conjugation

Kana / Kanji

Links　リンク集

Please note that some of the following websites are based on the contents of GENKI 2nd Edition.

Genki Kanji Quiz
A website that offers a set of interactive exercises for practicing kanji learned in GENKI. It helps you recognize the kanji through multiple choice and gap-fill exercises, jumble modules, and crosswords. (by Edith Paillat [Victoria University of Wellington])

KanjiAlive
Web-based tool to help Japanese-language learners read and write kanji. It contains a database of 1,235 kanji. Students can easily search for kanji in a certain lesson of GENKI by inputting the lesson number. (by Kanji Alive Team [The University of Chicago])

uPal: Associative Kanji Learning
This website offers essential information on every kanji that appear in the major Japanese language textbooks for elementary level. You can easily access kanji that appear in GENKI I and II, and learn their reading, meaning, stroke order (animations), and relational kanji knowledge. Kanji Matching Quizzes for these kanji are also offered. (by Joji Miwa)

MyKikitori―Practice Your Japanese Listening Skills
A listening practice site that contains original dialogues based on the grammar and vocabulary introduced in GENKI I. Two speeds, natural and slow, are available for each dialogue, and all the dialogues are accompanied by comprehension questions in audio format. (by Aiko Sato [San Francisco State University])

NIHONGO KIKUSASAIZU
36 original short, animated videos, 3 episodes each for Lesson 1 to Lesson 12. Both the Japanese and English transcripts are accessible on the website. There is a link to some interactive listening comprehension exercises. [Created by Nihongo Kikusasaizu Project Team.]

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This page is for learners using GENKI: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese. It provides links to videos and other online self-study resources.

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A Select List of Japanese Language Study Sites

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A Select List of Japanese Language Study Sites

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An older list, but still a very good resource.

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These also help read a web page. You just have to copy and paste the text into the form.

These are not aimed at JSL students, but if you understand Japanese fairly well, they are good.

For Beginners

For Intermediate to Advanced Students

voiceblog.jp/amane あまね☆ごえ
Female Voice: Not aimed at JSL students, but she has a beautiful voice and these are high quality short recordings. Good for repeated listenings.

Nippon VoiceBlog
Apparently aimed at non-Japanese. Tanscriptions of the show are on the web site. (Not recently updated.)

voiceblog.jp/reiki 櫻　怜祈（サクラ　レイキ）
Female Voice: Not aimed at JSL students, but high quality recordings without background music, so good for language study. Sort of an audio diary. (Last updated on December 14, 2006)

voiceblog.jp/taa 題名未定キャスト
Male Voice: Not aimed at JSL students, but includes a transcription. (Last updated: July 16, 2006, 7:00 pm)

A list of directories with podcasts in Japanese

Perhaps good to find conversational listening practice.

Things to Listen to with Scripts

These could be considered part of the above section as well. Streaming RealVideo News with the exact script of what the announcer says.

Things to Read with "Help"

www.gonihongo.com (Mayumi Ishida)
Some reading material with some vocabulary help.

チュウ太の読解教材 バンク (Kawamura, Kitamura & Hobara)
Things to read pre-made with "Reading Tutor."

E-Kanji
Reading in a 3-part frame with clickable kanji that show the reading and English in another frame

Kongetsu no Nihongo
24 Lessons with furigana as PDF files or Word files.

Petit Kanji (Patrick Benny)
Song lyrics with furigana and clickable kanji to get meanings and other words with the same kanji.

news.kids.yahoo.co.jp
News with furigana for all kanji.

NOW OFFLINE: Mainichi Shimbun - ニュースの言葉
Part of "Mainichi Kids" so all kanji has furigana.

Things to Read

You could use some of the Tools to Help Read Japanese Web Pages listed above to help you read some of these pages.

Video

Grammar Reference & Lessons

Lessons

study.U-biq.org
Quite a few lessons in Hiragana and Romaji, for beginners (or review for others).

www.japanese-nihongo.com - ËÌÅèÀéÄá"Ò¤ÎÆüËÜ¸ì¶µ¼¼
In HTML, Word Doc or PDF (RealAudio sound files, too.)

AJALT's Survival Japanese
In Romaji.

Fundamential Japanese Lessons (Charlotte Meyer)
There are 12 lessons which will take approximately 5 hours each.

Cornell University's Japanese Learning Materials (Yuka Kawasaki)
Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji (Gahoh Data), Listening, Reading, ...

Nihongo Center - One Point Lessons (www.alc.co.jp)
Conversational skills, etc. Bilingual pages.

Nihongo Shoho (Elementary Japanese Language) (Bernhard Garz)
34 lessons with MP3 files and vocabulary training.

Sakura - Japanese On-line - Monash University
Exercises, Web Tasks & Links

Pera-pera Penguin's 5-Minutes Japanese Class (Hitomi Hirayama)
Downloadable PDF files. (from the Daily Yomiuri).

Module 1: Japanese Home Stay (University of Alabama)
A "free" sample lesson

Kana Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanese
By Tad Perry (1992), HTML by (John Teehan (1998), Kana by Andy Searls (2000)

www.Japanese-online.com's Lessons
Introductory level. Sound files included.

Info-Japan.com's Lessons
Introductory level. Grammar, proverbs, ...

JinJapan.org's KidsWeb Language Lab
Basic; Hiragana Chart, Katakana Chart, Quick Kanji, 8 Lessons, Flash movies

Japanese123 - Intermediate Japanese
There is other stuff on this website, too, but perhaps this is the best entry point for the website.

www.speakrealjapanese.com

http://jplang.tufs.ac.jp/account/login
Dialogs can be listened to without logging in. (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Study Kana (Hiragana & Katakana)

Learn Those Kana (Larry Battle)
With audio.

Wai Wai Nihongo (Ryutaro Toyoda)
HIragana games in Flash, plus more. (Voice recordings by Kaori Mizumoto)

Moshi Moshi Student Activities - Requires the Shockwave plugin
The Hiragana Song
Hiragana Puzzle

Another Hiragana Song (nekopy.com)

The Fox's Ear: One character at a time explained to help you remember them all.
Katakana
Hiragana

Japanese Kana Quizzes (Charles Kelly)
Multiple-choice quizzes & flashcards: Hiragana and Katakana. Requires Flash 6.

Zompist's Hiragana Flashcards

www.kanacards.com (Jonathan Stiles)
Flashcards and multiple-choice quizzes using the Flash plugin.

KanaFlash (Tobias Gärder)
See the character, type in the Romaji (Hepburn?), then see if you got it right.

Writing Hiragana & Katakana (a-chi.jp)
Flash movies of stroke order.

ChipChat Japanese Training (Marty Cawthon)
Hiragana Drill and Katakana Drill. Requires Java.

Benjamin Barrett's Japanese Lesson Pages
Step by step through hiragana with appropriate vocabulary and a little kanji thrown in along the way.

Okayama University - Hiragana and Katakana Practice
Some are multiple-choice with sound files, some are fill-in-the-blanks.

Hiragana Challenge [Instructions] (Kazumi Hatasa)
Requires Shockwave. Remove all the Hiragana letters from the screen by clicking them in gojuuon order.

Katakana Challenge [Instructions] (Kazumi Hatasa)
Requires Shockwave. Remove all the Katakana letters from the screen by clicking them in gojuuon order.

Simple Hiragana (Taiji Hotta, Reiko Sato and Tomoko Watanabe)
Hiragana chart with WAV files, exercises on hiragana and vocabulary. Works even without a Japanese font installed.

Hiragana Chart (with a man's voice) (www.tokyowithkids.com)
Click the hiragana to hear the pronunciation. Works even without a Japanese font installed.

Hiragana Practice (with a woman's voice) (Kimi Furuta)
Click the hiragana to hear the pronunciation. Works even without a Japanese font installed. Includes non-repeating animated GIFs of stroke order.

AIUEO Aoi (Yuko Horii Takekawa)
Hiragana practice with kids' voices. Looks similar to the "hiragana blocks" I had as a kid.

Hiragana & Katakana Stroke Order (Satoru Shinagawa)
Uses Gahoh's QuickTime movies

Hiragana & Katakana Project (Yasuhiro Omoto)
Click to see stroke order.

Java Game of Hiragana and Katakana (Shinji Takasugi)
Click the pair of hiragana and katakana which share pronunciation

Image Version for Japanese Hiragana Characters with Speech (Jouji Miwa)
Click the character and hear a man's voice reading it to you.

Kana Flashcards
Randomly shows hiragana images. Works even without a Japanese font installed.

Hiragana & Katakana Concentration Games (Shunko Muroya)
This uses Dennie Hoopingarner's JavaScript code.

Kana Helper (jeffmk [at] myrealbox.com)
A random character is chosen, then you click its reading on the kana chart. (Also reverse mode is available.)

www.KanaChart.com (Casey Giles)
You can see images of katakana and hiragana.

genki.japantimes.co.jp
Self study materials for the "Genki" textbook.

Kana Game (Cathy DeMillion)
Requires Flash. See the English, click the kana for the word. (dangerous, red, bright, sweet, ...)

Hiragana Barabara Game
See a hiragana character broken into pieces and try to guess which one it is. This is more difficult than you might expect.

Help with Writing Japanese

Free Software - Various Platforms (Windows, Mac, ...)

Free Software - Windows

Windows Learning Tool and Kanji Lookup

Kanji Gold Flashcards (Denton Hewgill)

JFC - Japanese Flash Cards (Glenn Rosenthal)

Kanji Trainer Penpen (Alex Schonfeld)
A Tetris like (ie. things move and you can't stop them) matching game. Basically, you have to match: kanji character + phonetic reading + English meaning.

Vashon's Kana Study Aide (Kirkman Vashon)
A flashcard and multiple-choice quiz program. Requires Windows 95/98/2000/NT.

DreamKana (James Brown)
Hiragana and katakana flash card application that does not require any special fonts or language packs.

Free Software - Macintosh

Things for Teachers

Online Tools

Online Dictionaries

Japanese-Japanese

gogen-allguide.com
Read about the backgrounds of words and where they came from (in Japanese).

Pages about Japanese

Things to Read for Motivation & Hints

Online Translation

Please remember that machine translation is not very accurate.

Powered by Amikai

Powered by Systran

Other

Reference

About Japan

Not really language study, but studying culture is related.

JLPT Study

Text-to-Speech (TTS) - Voice Synthesizers

Require Registration

http://kanji.koohii.com/account/create (Remember the Kanji)
??

http://www.japanese-flashcards.com/ - fairly easy to use once you get used to all the popping up stuff.
More...

The following are commercial websites
http://www.kanjijourney.com/

Previously Featured Links
Previously featured
Visit These First

Previous on "What's New"
Perhaps these are also listed elsewhere on the page above. (2012-09-13)
v2p.jp - Watch Japanese TV or Listen to Radio in Real Time
The framerate is a bit slow, but watchable. After downloading and installing the software (free, Mac, Windows, Linux), you'll see a selection of stations.
テレビ朝日 / テレビ東京 / NHK / bayfm78 / etc.
Basic Japanese Lessons (by Koh Kia Leng of Singapore)
I haven't really checked this site out yet.

I noticed on June 30, 2011 that coscom.co.jp now has slowly spoken news with text.

Tagini Jisho (a free, open-source Japanese dictionary and kanji lookup tool that is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux)
It's been around a while, but I noticed it wasn't listed here, so I added it June 30, 2011.

MightyVerse's Japanese Sentences
Videos of People Saying (1,856) Japanese Sentences - Requires Flash

cueflash.com/tags/japanese
You have to register to "study," but you can browse the lists without registering. (User submitted data.)

quizlet.com/subject/japanese
User submitted flashcard data, so possibly not proofread by a native speaker.
TRY THIS: Go to one of the sets of Tatoeba.org Sentences, click the speaker icon and listen to how good the text-to-speech voices are.

AIJ FlashCard Program (Free)
Mac or Windows
It's been around since 2007, but it's newly-listed here.

Douglas P Perkins's Free Printable Kanji Flashcards
Kanji on one side, reading, and high frequency words on the other.

japanese.nciku.com
A dictionary, vocabulary lists, flashcards, etc. You don't need to become a member to use the site.
japanese.nciku.com's Popular Vocabulary Lists
You can try the dictionary from here.

Minna no Nihongo 1 and 2 Vocabulary Quizzes (Larry Battle)

KanjiDamage.com (Henri Servomaa)
Jump to Kanji Facts.
Or jump to Start with the First Kanji.

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A Select List of Japanese Language Study Sites

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These may not be all the very best sites, but these are definitely some of the best.

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Genki Study Games | Japanese Language Learning

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Genki Study Games is a supplemental tool to help you study using the Genki textbooks. Learn Japanese through vocabulary games that follow each chapter.

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Yoshida Institute - Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji (JLPT N5 through N1 - AP Japanese)

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Yoshida Institute - Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji (JLPT N5 through N1 - AP Japanese)

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LEARNING HIRAGANA

Learning the two Japanese phonetic alphabets, hiragana and katakana, are key to learning basic Japanese. Each hiragana character represents a single vowel or consonant-vowel sound. In the chart below you can see all of the basic hiragana characters along with the closest sounding roman letters. The five vowel sounds, a (ah), i (ee), u (oo), e (eh), o (oh), are combined with the consonant sounds k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w to produce almost all the sounds represented by hiragana characters. The consonant-only n character appears at the end of words. These characters were all originally written with a brush, so writing the strokes of a hiragana character in the right order is important in getting the shape of the character correct.

Click on any of the characters in the table below to see how to write it correctly:

The characters above are the ones you should teach yourself to read and write. Looking over the chart above you might be tempted to think "Why don't they just use Roman letters?!?" but it actually helps your pronunciation to learn to associate the sounds of Japanese words with hiragana. Your brain already associates sequences of Roman letters with sounds in English so it's important to leave that behind to pronounce Japanese words correctly.

Some of the basic hiragana characters above are also written with modifiers that change the consonant sound slightly. For example, by adding two small vertical dashes or a small circle, the pronunciation of the hiragana for "ha" becomes "ba" or "pa". The chart below contains the complete list of possible combinations:

When a ya, yu, or yo sound follows certain characters in Japanese, the sound is shortened and so instead of two separate characters, the sound is written as the combination of the first character and a small, subscripted version of the ya, yu, or yo sound that follows:

Once you've learned these characters, you're ready to start reading Japanese!

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japanese language school in tokyo - yoshida institute.

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Learning Hiragana - Japanese Language - Yoshida Institute

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Learning the two Japanese phonetic alphabets, hiragana and katakana, are key to learning basic Japanese, Japanese Language school in Tokyo - Yoshida Institute.

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An e-learning site that offers a fun way to learn a number of character/genre-based Japanese expressions that appear in anime and manga.

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From the Japan Foundation

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国際交流基金 関西国際センター The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai

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日本語でケアナビ グローバルトップ｜PC版

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Marugoto - Japanese Language and Culture

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Marugoto - Japanese Language and Culture

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From the Japan Foundation
A1 is the easiset in this series and C2 is the hardest.

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MARUGOTO+ (MARUGOTO Plus) is a website where users can learn about Japanese language and culture based on the contents of the "MARUGOTO: Japanese Language and Culture", the official coursebook of the Japan Foundation, which complies to the JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education.

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ｊｆ日本語教育スタンダード

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Japan Foundation website for learning about Japanese language and culture based on 'Marugoto: Japanese Language and Culture' coursebook.

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A1 - Easiest ~ C2 Hardest

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Learn Japanese anytime, anywhere.

Learn Japanese anytime, anywhere.

Self-Study Course

Starting Soon

In Progress

At Minato, you can find friends to communicate with.

At Minato, you can find friends to communicate with.

Make friends of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds.

Minato has virtual communities where users from around the world can communicate with one another. Here, you can interact with friends of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds.

Your common topic is Japan.

Feel free to join the community with a focus on Japan (Japanese manga, Japanese TV dramas, Japanese cooking, tourist spots in Japan, Japanese traditional culture, methods of studying Japanese, and so on). If you can't find a theme that you're interested in, you can make your own community.

Beginners are welcome, too.

Communicate with the Japanese that you know. It's okay to use your own language too, if you're just starting out. Reach out to people using hiragana or romaji. After that, try out a bit of Japanese that you've just learned. It's a great challenge.

JF has other environments for learning Japanese, too.

JF has other environments for learning Japanese, too.

Minato, a place to learn and meet.

Minato, a place to learn and meet.

JF Japanese e-Learning Minato is a Japanese language learning platform provided by the Japan Foundation. Minato means "port". Here at Minato, a place to learn and meet other like-minded people, we invite you to expand your understanding and knowledge of Japan, Japanese people, and the Japanese language.

Take various online Japanese courses.

On Minato, you'll find all sorts of Japanese online courses. With Minato's online Japanese courses you can start learning Japanese wherever you are, whenever you want to. Have you given up on learning because you can't find a class nearby? Are you too busy to commute? Just want to try it out but are a bit nervous? Well this is the place for you. Choose the level, course type, study category, and language of explanation that suits you and you're set to go.

Interact with Japanese language learners all over the world.

On Minato, you can communicate with people all over the world who are studying Japanese, on various topics. You can make your own community or join a community that you might like. Find friends from around the world who share your interests.

So, start today.

If you want to know more about Japan, get really into Japanese language, brush up your Japanese, or make friends with people around the world who speak Japanese, then this platform is for you. Start by signing up today.

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'Minato' - learn Japanese and interact with fellow students around the world online. At Minato our constant goal is to always develop the most inspiring Japanese courses. Let Minato be the place you start your Japanese language and cultural exchange journey.

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Ａ： すいません。きょうは （　　　）ですか。
Ｂ： きょうは すいようびです。
Ａ： すいようびですか。なんにちですか。
Ｂ： （　　　）です。
Ａ： ああ。はつかですか。（　　　）の すいようびは なんにちですか。
Ｂ： らいしゅうの すいようびは （　　　）ですよ。
Ａ： ああ、そうですか。ありがとうございます。

Full script

こいけ： おがわさんの なつやすみは なんにちから なんにちまでですか。
おがわ： ん～、ことしは ８がつ（　　　）から （　　　）までです。
こいけ： ああ、そうですか。どこに いきますか。
おがわ： え～。たぶん、ほっかいどうに いきます。
こいけ： ああ、そうですか。（　　　）。
おがわ： うん、こいけさんは？
こいけ： わたしの なつやすみは とおかから （　　　）までです。たぶん、おきなわに きます。
おがわ： おきなわですか。いいですねえ。

Full script

かねだ： そのネクタイは いくらでしたか。
Ｂ： これは （　　　）えんでした。
かねだ： あっ。そうですか。
Ｂ： かねださん（　　　）は？
かねだ： わたしのは ２,０００えんでした。
Ｂ： そうですか。

Full script

レストランの ひと： はい、ニューとうきょうレストランです。
Ｂ： あっ、えっと、そちらは （　　　）なんじまでですか。
レストランの ひと： こちらは（　　　）から ごご１１じはんまでです。
Ｂ： あっ。そうですか。 え～と、やすみは？
レストランの ひと： やすみは （　　　）です。
Ｂ： わかりました。 どうも。
レストランの ひと： はい、（　　　）。

Full script

Ａ： はしもとさん、しごとは なんじ（　　　）なんじ（　　　）ですか。
はしもと： わたしは（　　　）から ゆうがた５じはんまでです。
Ａ： そうですか。なんようびから なんようびまでですか。
はしもと： （　　　）から きんようびまでです。どようびと にちようびは やすみです。
Ａ： そうですか。

Full script

せいと： せんせい、しつもんがあります。
せんせい： はい、なんですか。
せいと： 'The day after tomorrow'は （　　　）なんですか。
せんせい：（　　　）、です。
せいと： そうですか。（　　　）、 Friday は にほんごで なんですか。
せんせい： きんようびです。
せいと： じゃ、Saturday は？
せんせい： どようびです。
せいと： そうですか。じゃあ、weekend は にほんごで なんですか。
せんせい： （　　　）です。
せいと： わかりました。ありがとうございました。
せんせい： はい。

せいと： あっ。（　　　）、おはようございます。
せんせい： おはようございます。
せいと： せんしゅうの もくようび、マイケルさん、きましたか。
せんせい： いいえ、せんしゅうの もくようびは （　　　）。
せいと： そうですか。（　　　）。
せんせい： きょうは たぶん きます。
せいと： あっ。そうですか。

Full script

せんせい： （　　　）。
せいと： ありがとうございました。
せんせい： あっ、（　　　）。これ、しゅくだいです。
せいと： あっ、わかりました。
せんせい： がんばってください。
せいと： は～い。あっ、せんせい、すみません。らいしゅうの かようびの レッスン、わたしは きません。
せんせい： あっ、そうですか。じゃ、これ（　　　）、しゅくだいです。
せいと： えっ、 そうですか。
せんせい： （　　　）。
せいと： はい。ありがとうございます。がんばりま～す。

おきゃく： すみませ～ん。ちょっと、（　　　）。
てんいん： はい、どうぞ。
おきゃく： （　　　）を みせてください。
てんいん： はい。どれですか。
おきゃく： これです。 これ。
てんいん： あっ。これですね。はい、どうぞ。
おきゃく： えっと、これはいくらですか。
てんいん： え～、こちらは （　　　）えんです。
おきゃく： そうですか～。これは どこの とけいですか。
てんいん： これは イタリアのです。
おきゃく： あ～。そうですか。あっ、それから、（　　　）みせてください。
てんいん： あっ。どうぞ、どうぞ。
おきゃく： これは いくらですか。
てんいん： こちらは ３まん８せんえんです。あっ、いえ、いえ、すみません。３まんえんです。
おきゃく： ３まんえん。これは どこの とけいですか。
てんいん： これも イタリアのです。
おきゃく： これも イタリアのですか。ディスカウント、（　　　）ですか。
てんいん： ディスカウントですか。ん～、ちょっと、（　　　）ですね。
おきゃく： そうですか。ん～、じゃ、これをください
てんいん： はい、ありがとうございます。こちらは （　　　）です。
おきゃく： はい、カード、だいじょうぶですか。
てんいん： はい、だいじょうぶですよ。
おきゃく： そうですか。（　　　）、これ。
てんいん： あっ。ＶＩＳＡカードですね だいじょうぶですよ。

やおや： いらっしゃ～い。
おきゃく： すみません。このトマトは いくらですか。
やおや： えっと、これは、（　　　）、２００えんです。
おきゃく： ん～。そうですか。１つ、いくらですか。
やおや： （　　　）ですよ。
おきゃく： ん～、じゃ、これ、２つください。
やおや： はい、１００えんね。
おきゃく： え～っと。それから レモンは いくらですか。
やおや： レモンは ３つ１００えんです。
おきゃ： ひとつは だめですか。
やおや： あ～、それはねえ・・・
おきゃく： ん～、じゃ、（　　　）。
やおや： はい、じゃ、２００えんね。
おきゃく： はい、じゃ、これ。
やおや： はい、（　　　）。 ありがとう。
おきゃく： どうも。

Donload PDF files

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Listening practice for JLPT N5 Level 1 No.11-20

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Japanese stories, situational conversations and more.

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Create a free account or sign in to enable the “According to my knowledge” settings.

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Today's Top Japan and World News | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

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Japanese public broadcaster provides the latest breaking news, live video, analysis and features from Asia and around the world.

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Crunchy Nihongo! - Hiragana (and more) Reading Practice

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Crunchy Nihongo! - Hiragana (and more) Reading Practice

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Crunchy Nihongo! - Easy to learn Japanese Lessons!

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Hi ! We hope this site helps you! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases without additional cost. Click to read more about our Privacy Policy or Affiliate Disclosure

Either if you have memorized the shape of Hiragana manually or by using mnemonics provided by our guide, you will still need to practice a lot of reading to lock them up to your long term memory. But yes, it's not easy to gather material to practice Hiragana. So we try to create a page for you to practice your reading!

One of the best resource for beginners to practice reading are children's book & easy to read manga. If you only want to choose one, the best one is from Ghibli's picture book series. They are thick (over 150 pages), use simple sentences, equipped with furigana and not to mention, the price cost the same as a 10-20 pages children book! So worth to have~

In any case that you can't get your hand on the books, you can use this page to practice reading! This page takes 2 part of Princess Kaguya story and layouted in a way so you can focus practicing Hiragana reading. We'll keep adding more stories, so please look forward to them!

Important notes before you start

Treat these pages only as a reading practice and not as a lesson to learn Japanese

You can totally ignore the meaning. Just try to read the hiragana correctly since understanding the meaning of a sentence require more knowledge in Japanese grammar and is an entirely different skill set than what you want to achieve now, which is to read Hiragana & lock them up in you long term memory.

If you focus on both the word & meaning, your brain will get exhausted very quickly and might get discouraged to learn further.

But what if I want to learn Japanese?

Check out lesson index instead, or if you have budget and only want to read one book, get Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar. Once you read it, you'll be able to use other books to practice reading Japanese and expand your vocabularies effectively with less frustration.

Some hiragana are read differently

Notice some hiragana which being used as particles in a sentence are read differently.
* は A particle to mark topic, is read as WA
* へ A particle to mark direction of movement, is read as E
* を A particle to mark direct object, is read as O

You don't have to memorize the usage of particles for now

Just focus on noticing them and read them correctly. To make it easier to you, hiragana used as particle and read differently is written in bold.

Now that you're ready to practice, pick one of these stories below!

Note that these stories are a work in progress. They are incomplete stories but you can use them to practice reading Hiragana with no problem 😀 Happy learning~

Related

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Hiragana Reading Practice - Crunchy Nihongo!

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Either if you have memorized the shape of Hiragana manually or by using mnemonics provided by our guide, you will still need to practice a lot of reading to lock them up to your long term memory. But yes, it's not easy to gather material to practice Hiragana.

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Walking in Japan - A collection of 4K videos of street life.

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Walking in Japan - A collection of 4K videos of street life.

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japan lumix beholder gimbal gh5 gh4 gh3 gh2 япония храм природа горы temple shrine nature weird странный mountains videowalk видеопрогулка walk tour travel p...

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Just my personal videos filmed generally in Japan. For any business and usage requests use email. For video and live stream discussions https://discord.gg/cbTsSZM If you want to support traveling and equipment personally you can use Ko-Fi https://ko-fi.com/rambalac Patreon https://www.patreon.com/rambalac I don't use Instagram or Facebook. Anything there has no relation to me.

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Japan the Beautiful - 4K and 8K video walkthroughs of Tokyo.

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Japan the Beautiful - 4K and 8K video walkthroughs of Tokyo.

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beautiful japan tokyo travel 4k 日本 kyoto japon culture food япония "ultra hd" 8k

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TokyoStreetView comes from this huge passion that some of us have for Japan in order to offer people around the world the chance to enjoy a bias-free experience of Japan. For any questions, Inquiries or just want to acquire some of our footage/videos, please do not hesitate to contact us here https://www.tokyostreetview.com/contact-us/.

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Like Space Invaders, but typing in Hiragana / Katakana. Typing practice.

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Learn Japanese Hiragana and Katakana in a fun and effective way, while you play. Kana invaders combines classic space invaders gameplay with effective flash card learning of the Japanese kana characters.

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Just like the one in arcades!

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Pursuant to a request by Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. the version of Taiko Web accessible at taiko.bui.pm and the GitHub repository containing the source code created by "Bui" have been removed.

Taiko Web infringes the copyright of Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. and it reserves the right to take legal action against any individual that reproduces or hosts any instance of Taiko Web and/or reproduces or uploads the source code.

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Pursuant to a request by Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. the version of Taiko Web accessible at taiko.bui.pm and the GitHub repository containing the source code created by "Bui" have been removed. Taiko Web infringes the copyright of Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

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Web-based. Some use Flash while others use HTML5

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Train driving simulator , Movie, Picture and etc…

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Watch videos together, play games, or simply chat with friends or strangers all from within your browser!

No installation or signup needed.

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Videos, games, music, & more. All in one place.

Kosmi is your entertainment universe, bringing together your favorite TV, movies, games, music, and other apps, all in one place. Hang out in one of your rooms, invite your friends, and see who shows up.

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Watch videos together, play games, or simply chat with friends or strangers all from within your browser!

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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

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This guide was created as a resource for those who want to learn Japanese grammar in a rational, intuitive way that makes sense in Japanese. The explanations are focused on how to make sense of the grammar not from English but from a Japanese point of view.

Before you begin

If your computer is not setup to display Japanese, you'll want to enable Japanese support to read the Japanese text.

Other formats

1. Paperback - Available on Amazon.

2. iOS app - The guide is now available for iOS devices created by Adam Critchley.

3. Android app - The guide is now available on Google Play created by Ignatius Reza Lesmana.

This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License.

The problem with conventional textbooks

The problem with conventional textbooks is that they often have the following goals.

1. They want readers to be able to use functional and polite Japanese as quickly as possible.

2. They don't want to scare readers away with terrifying Japanese script and Chinese characters.

3. They want to teach you how to say English phrases in Japanese.

Traditionally with romance languages such as Spanish, these goals present no problems or are nonexistent due to the similarities to English. However, because Japanese is different in just about every way down to the fundamental ways of thinking, these goals create many of the confusing textbooks you see today. They are usually filled with complicated rules and countless number of grammar for specific English phrases. They also contain almost no Kanji and so when you finally arrive in Japan, lo and behold, you discover you can't read menus, maps, or essentially anything at all because the book decided you weren't smart enough to memorize Chinese characters. The root of this problem lies in the fact that these textbooks try to teach you Japanese with English. They want to teach you on the first page how to say, "Hi, my name is Smith," but they don't tell you about all the arbitrary decisions that were made behind your back. They probably decided to use the polite form even though learning the polite form before the dictionary form makes no sense. They also might have decided to include the subject even though it's not necessary and omitted most of the time. In fact, the most common way to say something like "My name is Smith" in Japanese is to say "Smith". That's because most of the information is understood from the context and is therefore omitted. But do most textbooks explain the way things work in Japanese fundamentally? No, because they're too busy trying to push you out the door with "useful" phrases right off the bat. The result is a confusing mess of "use this if you want to say this" type of text and the reader is left with a feeling of confusion about how things actually work. The solution to this problem is to explain Japanese from a Japanese point of view. Take Japanese and explain how it works and forget about trying to force what you want to say in English into Japanese. To go along with this, it is also important to explain things in an order that makes sense in Japanese. If you need to know [A] in order to understand [B], don't cover [B] first just because you want to teach a certain phrase. Essentially, what we need is a Japanese guide to learning Japanese grammar.

A Japanese guide to learning Japanese grammar

This guide is an attempt to systematically build up the grammatical structures that make up the Japanese language in a way that makes sense in Japanese. It may not be a practical tool for quickly learning immediately usable phrases such as for travel. However, it will logically create successive building blocks that will result in a solid grammatical foundation. For those of you who have learned Japanese from textbooks, you may see some big differences in how the material is ordered and presented. This is because this guide does not seek to forcibly create artificial ties between English and Japanese by presenting the material in a way that makes sense in English. Instead, examples with translations will show how ideas are expressed in Japanese resulting in simpler explanations that are easier to understand. In the beginning, the English translations for the examples will also be as literal as possible to convey the Japanese sense of the meaning. This will often result in grammatically incorrect translations in English. For example, the translations might not have a subject because Japanese does not require one. In addition, since the articles "the" and "a" do not exist in Japanese, the translations will not have them as well. And since Japanese does not distinguish between a future action and a general statement (such as "I will go to the store" vs. "I go to the store"), no distinction will necessarily be made in the translation. It is my hope that the explanation of the examples will convey an accurate sense of what the sentences actually mean in Japanese. Once the reader becomes familiar and comfortable thinking in Japanese, the translations will be less literal in order to make the sentences more readable and focused on the more advanced topics. Be aware that there are advantages and disadvantages to systematically building a grammatical foundation from the ground up. In Japanese, the most fundamental grammatical concepts are often the most difficult to truly understand. This means that the hardest part of the language will come first. Textbooks usually don't take this approach; afraid that this will scare away or frustrate those interested in the language. Instead, they try to delay going deeply into the hardest conjugation rules with patchwork and gimmicks so that they can start teaching useful expressions right away. This is a fine approach for some, however; it can create more confusion and trouble along the way, much like building a house on a poor foundation. The hard parts must be covered no matter what. However, if you cover them in the beginning, the easier parts will be all that much easier because they'll fit nicely on top of the foundation you have built. Japanese is syntactically much more consistent than English. If you learn the hardest conjugation rules, most of remaining grammar builds upon similar or identical rules. The only difficult part from there on is sorting out and remembering all the various possible expressions and combinations in order to use them in the correct situations. ※Note: You will see half brackets like these: 「」 in the text. These are the Japanese version of quotation marks.

Suggestions

Here's my advice for practicing Japanese: if you find yourself trying to figure out how to say an English thought in Japanese, save yourself the trouble and stop because you won't get it right most of the time. You should always keep in mind that if you don't know how to say it already, then you don't know how to say it. Instead, if you can, ask someone how to say it in Japanese including a full explanation of the answer and start practicing from Japanese. Language is not a math problem; you don't have to figure out the answer. If you practice from the answer, you will develop good habits that will help you formulate correct and natural Japanese sentences. This is why I'm a firm believer of learning by example. Examples and experience will be your main tools in mastering Japanese. Therefore, even if you don't understand something completely the first time, just move on and keep referring back as you see more examples. This will allow you to get a better sense of how it's used in many different contexts. Even this guide will not have all the examples to cover every situation. But lucky for you, Japanese is everywhere, especially on the web. I recommend practicing Japanese as much as possible and referring to this guide only when you cannot understand the grammar. The Internet alone has a rich variety of reading materials including websites, bulletin boards, and online chat. Buying Japanese books or comic books is also an excellent (and fun) way to increase your vocabulary and practice reading skills. It's also important to keep in mind that it is impossible to learn good speaking and listening skills without actually conversing in Japanese. Practicing listening and speaking skills with fluent speakers of Japanese is a must if you wish to master conversational skills. While audio listening material can be very educational, there is nothing better than interacting with a real human for learning pronunciation, intonation, and natural conversation flow. If you have specific questions that are not addressed in this guide, you can ask them on the facebook group. Don't feel discouraged by the vast amount of material that you will need to master. Remember that every new word or grammar learned is one step closer to mastering the language!

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This guide was created as a resource for those who want to learn Japanese grammar in a rational, intuitive way that makes sense in Japanese. The explanations are focused on how to make sense of the grammar not from English but from a Japanese point of view.

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Powerful and easy-to-use online Japanese dictionary with words, kanji and example sentences.

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ONLY FOR IPHONES AND IPADS

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Please add the option to copy a word. At the moment the dictionary blocks the copy function. I often need to copy words into Anki to check whether I have a mnemonic card for the certain Kanji used but I'm unable to without a cumbersome workaround of searching in Japanese and then copying from there.

Please also add the option to highlight known words. I find it strange that there's no option to have the app distinguish between words I know and ones I've simply looked up maybe just once in the app. There a huge difference between these two. It'd be great to have an indication of this when I'm reading so that I know when to pause a little longer and recall the word or whether to just press to look at the definition as I may have only encountered it maybe the once in passing.

Also really needs a feature to import a known words list as a simple txt file. Many people already have these lists from apps like the Morphman add on for Anki.

Thanks for the good ideas! I've added these to my list.

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‎NEW 2023 UPDATE: 3.0 is a complete rewrite packed with new features. - Anki flashcard creation - Offline support - macOS debut! - iPad and iPhone get brand new browser-like interfaces - Vocabulary tracking stats (not just kanji) - Japanese/English dictionary search from the home screen - Kanji drawi...

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THE "BEST" RESOURCES FOR LEARNING JAPANESE

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THE "BEST" RESOURCES FOR LEARNING JAPANESE

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This page is a collection of the ultimate and best resources for learning Japanese!

I'm aiming to collect all the tools you need to learn Japanese right here on this one page.

I try to share as many free Japanese learning resources as possible, although there are also some paid products that I highly recommend.

The list is updated every time I find a great new resource that will help you kick start your Japanese studies! Know a great tool or resource that I don't already have here? Please let me know and I'll include it in the next update 🙂

Best online Japanese courses

JapanesePod101

JapanesePod101 is our top recommendation to learn Japanese online. We love the fun, current audio lessons and interactive online tools.

There are literally thousands of audio lessons to choose from, which will take you from complete beginner to highly advanced. You'll never get bored or run out of study material with this highly recommended course!

Sign up for your free lifetime account and see for yourself!

Join for free! Our review

Rocket Japanese

Another excellent course to learn Japanese by yourself. Learn Japanese online, at your own pace, with interactive audio lessons, flashcards, voice recognition software, Japanese culture lessons, a forum where you can get help from native teachers, and more.

Best resources for Japanese reading and writing

This app is awesome for Japanese reading practice on the go. It lets you read any text with furigana on the kanji. You can also click on selected words to get a dictionary definition, and then add them to your personal word bank for review. You can choose from their selected texts (news, blogs or folktales), or enter your own url to read any website through the app. Sadly it's iPhone only at the moment.

Best resources for Japanese speaking and listening

Affordable private lessons with native speakers

Best Japanese grammar resources

Other great Japanese learning resources

Practise your Japanese writing skills by posting in Japanese. Your writing will be corrected by a native speaker.

Awesome browser extensions to help you read Japanese online. Simply hover over a Japanese word and a mini dictionary entry will pop up. rikaikun is for Chrome, rikaichan is for Firefox.

This is a great free online dictionary which has search functions for kanji, sample sentences, and Japanese names, in addition to normal words.

My favourite Japanese dictionary app for iPhone and iPad.

Where to buy Japanese language materials online

Amazon will probably be your best choice for any Japanese textbooks and study guides. They also have an ever-growing assortment of books in Japanese and bilingual books.

If you're looking for a book published in Japan, you might have more luck on Amazon.co.jp. They will ship anywhere in the world - although of course, shipping will be more expensive. Some of the site is translated into English.
What are your top resources for learning Japanese? Let me know and I'll update our list.
Rebecca Shiraishi-Miles

Rebecca is the founder of Team Japanese. She spent two years teaching English in Ehime, Japan. Now back in the UK, she spends her time blogging, self-studying Japanese and wrangling a very genki toddler.

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The Ultimate List of Japanese Learning Resources (2023) - Team Japanese

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Japanese learning resources: the ultimate list of books, websites, apps and courses you need to learn Japanese online free. Constantly updated!

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KANJI MNEMONICS

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Study the Japanese characters with James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" method, and review with kanji flashcards.

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Free Web magazine in simple Japanese

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learn how to speak read and write japanese

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free web magazine written in easy Japanese language

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Free Web magazine written in easy Japanese language. It is designed for all Japanese learners from Beginners to Intermediates. You can improve a reading and listening skills.

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Community of Native speakers supporting your language learning.

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Multi-lingual language learning and language exchange Lang-8

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Lang-8 is the best place for learning and practicing foreign languages. Post an entry in the language you are learning, then a native speaker will correct your entries. Currently there are more than 80 languages available on Lang-8.

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Learn a language by chatting with native speakers around the world. Free!

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HelloTalk | Free Language Exchange | Language Partners

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Language learning app - learn a language by chatting with native speakers around the world. iOS or Android.

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Great listening website with mini comprehension quizzes.

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MyKikitoriへようこそ！

This is a fun and easy way to practice kikitori (listening comprehension) for beginning learners of Japanese. This interactive listening practice site is based on Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese Volume 1 Second Edition. This is a perfect website for not only Genki 1 users, but for anyone who is looking for listening practice. It is free and there is no need to sign up for an account! Enjoy and がんばってください！

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This is a fun and easy way to practice kikitori (listening comprehension) for beginning learners of Japanese. This interactive listening practice site is based on Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese Volume 1 Second Edition. This is a perfect website for not only Genki 1 users, but for anyone who is looking for listening practice.

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Listening exercise

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Enjoy J1 on your TV. Install the official J1 Radio Roku channel.

"Alexa, play the station J 1 Hits on TuneIn."
"Alexa, play J1 HD Radio."
"Alexa, play J1 Gold on TuneIn."
"Alexa, play Delmarva F M on TuneIn."

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JAPANESE FOR BUSY PEOPLE Rosa's blog⇔Rosa's daily life

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私（わたし）も　はじめて　ざぜんを　たいけんしました。

朝（あさ）　はやく　おきて、朝（あさ）ごはんを　食べる　前（まえ）に　おてらに　行きました。

ざぜんが　はじまる　前（まえ）に　おぼうさんから　ざぜんの　しかたを　ならいました。

せなかを　まっすぐ　のばして　すわりました。それから　てを　おなかの　あたりに　おきました。　そして　ゆっくり　こきゅうを　しました。何も　かんがえませんでした。

Last Satuady there was a Zen meditation session at a Zen temple in kyoto. Every year, many foreigners go to this session to practice Zen meditation.

I,too,experienced Zen meditation 〔there〕for the first time. I got up early in the morning and went to the temple before eating breakfast. Before the session started, I learned how to practice Zen metitation from the temple priest.

After the meditation was over we listened to a talk by the priest. After the talk we ate breakfast with everyone. Then the participants introduced themselves.

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JAPANESE FOR BUSY PEOPLE Rosa's blog⇔Rosa's daily life

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ワークブックのキャラクター、ローザさんが伝える日本の毎日　+++ コメントをかいてください。ローマ字でもいいです。ローザさんが返事をかきます +++ Rosa's daily lifeもよんでください。 Life in Japan as seen by Rosa in the Workbook. Write a comment, and you'll hear back from Rosa. Romaji is OK. You can also go to Rosa's daily life.

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mlc meguro language tokyo japan japanese school jlpt lesson online

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Japanese Language School - MLC Meguro Language Center, Tokyo

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We support your Japanese learning. The Japanese language school, Meguro Language Center (in Tokyo) was established in 1990 and since then has been attended by students from all over the world. We can offer English-speaking students part-time group lessons (conversation, business, JLPT), one-to-one lessons, intensive courses, Online lessons (by Skype), and on-site lessons.

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Listening Comprehension

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Conversation Prompts

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Questions / Requests / Responses

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Japanese / English

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JLPT Resources

Japanese Learning Resources

New to the JLPT? Start here!

If you don't know where to start here is a short list of the most vital articles for preparing for the JLPT.
JLPT Time Management - How should you manage your time on the test? JLPT Study Hours - How much study time does it take to pass each level of the test? JLPT Listening Sections - What are they like? Confused about what level you should take? Click here.
Do you have another question? Use the search bar in the upper right to access all the content on the site, or contact me.

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JLPT Boot Camp - The Ultimate Study Guide to passing the Japanese Language Proficiency Test - The Ultimate Study Guide to Passing the JLPT in Less Time and With Less Pain.

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If you don't know where to start here is a short list of the most vital articles for preparing for the JLPT. JLPT Time Management - How should you manage your time on the test? JLPT Study Hours - How much study time does it take to pass each level of the test?

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Tobira - Advanced listening, kanji and grammar resources

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Tobira - Advanced listening, kanji and grammar resources

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ここは教科書の「読み物」、「会話文」、「単語」、「会話練習モデル会話」の音声教材ダウンロードエリアです。教科書内で上のマークがある部分を録音した音声教材をダウンロードすることができます。

From this page, you can download the audio files for Tobira's readings, conversations, vocabulary lists, and model dialogues. Audio files are available for the sections in Tobira that are marked with the headset logo shown above.

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音声教材 | 漢字・語彙・音声・文法 | 上級へのとびら

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日本の地理・歴史からポップカルチャーまで、様々なトピックを通して4技能を伸ばす画期的中級日本語教科書。マルチメディアを使用した言語習得を促し、外国在住の学習者でも日本語環境に触れることができるようなサポートも確立。Tobira is a groundbreaking new intermediate Japanese textbook designed to develop the four main language skills through the study of a variety of different topics, from Japanese geography and history to pop culture. Key to Tobira's approach are a focus on multimedia-based learning and a dedication to providing access to a Japanese-language environment even to students studying outside of Japan.

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Nippon.com Quizzes and tests

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More Than Just Rote Learning

During their six years in elementary school, Japanese children learn over 1,000 kanji. In this time, they greatly increase their reading sophistication, moving from picture books to short novels and simple biographies. Characters are all around them and often graded to their level, whether they are taking lessons in social studies or other subjects, practicing calligraphy, or even reading manga and playing video games in their free time.

When they actually sit down to formally study kanji in kokugo (Japanese language) classes, there is more than just rote learning involved, as a look at a textbook-in this case a kanji drill book for third-graders published by Bunkei-will demonstrate. As well as the basics of the meaning, stroke order, and different readings for each kanji, there are colorful pictures appealing to children and easy-to-understand practice sentences. There are also various tips and tricks for fixing the kanji in their memory.

Often there is a short sentence or two highlighting different readings or words that use the kanji. At other times, the book may illustrate the derivation of the structure through resemblance to real things; the character 開, meaning "open," looks like two hands holding a gate to open it. There are also stories connecting the different parts of the kanji, such as that words spoken (言) in a temple (寺) are poetry (詩).

Pictures and sentences may indicate the differences between words that are pronounced the same, but written with different kanji. For example, 上る and 登る are both pronounced noboru and can be used to describe going up a hill, but while the first has a more general meaning, the second is only for climbing through physical effort. There are some simple quizzes and puzzles too, which put the emphasis on having fun with kanji.

It is certainly true that the ability to write kanji is reinforced by a great deal of repetition, but other techniques play an important role at the initial encounter. Even as the characters get more complex in junior high and high school, there are popular tricks for remembering how to write them. The role of reading should not be ignored, either: repeatedly seeing kanji in meaningful contexts helps them to stick in the mind, which is why schools generally set scheduled reading times throughout the week.

Potential Benefits of Writing by Hand

Given the option, some foreign students learning Japanese may choose not to spend time learning how to write kanji by hand. This is a reasonable decision in an age of computers and smartphones, when very little communication is done on paper. Prioritizing other aspects of Japanese could be wise in the early stages of learning in particular. Even so, handwriting is a skill that offers a variety of potential benefits.

First, the repeated action of writing can help cement the knowledge more firmly than reading alone. Writing also forces students to focus on the shape of a character, emphasizing the difference between similar kanji that are easily confused, such as 千 (1,000) and 干 (dried) or 微 (minute) and 徴 (sign). Both of these factors can make characters more readily recognizable the next time they are encountered in reading.

Copying example sentences can also be beneficial as a form of reading practice. It is all too easy to skim over sentences when simply reading. Actually getting involved through writing means slowing down, encouraging more careful attention to the content. This instills knowledge of natural Japanese and the wider patterns of how words fit together.

A Free Online Resource

The textbooks used in schools are distributed free of charge to children and are not available for sale. There are, however, many other materials for learning kanji in Japanese bookshops or online, including the popular series of preparation books for the Kanji Kentei certification, although these can be difficult to find outside Japan. Some free Internet resources also provide simple worksheets that support basic kanji practice.

The best of these is Chibimusu Doriru, which even Japanese beginners will find relatively easy to navigate. To find kanji worksheets at different levels, click the various options listed in the kokugo (国語) section. More adventurous souls can try the quizzes for elementary school students or explore the idioms, proverbs, or four-character phrases a little further down.

(Banner photo: Writing out columns of characters by hand remains a common-and uncommonly effective-way to memorize them.)

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More Than Just Rote Learning During their six years in elementary school, Japanese children learn over 1,000 ...

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Tsunagaru - Japanese conversations (new site)

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Tsunagaru - Japanese conversations (new site)

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「生活者としての外国人」のための日本語学習サイト つながるひろがるにほんごでのくらし

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「生活者としての外国人」のための日本語学習サイト つながるひろがるにほんごでのくらし

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Kongregate free online game Kana Warrior / かなウォリアー - Learn the two basic Japanese writing systems in a brand new way. Featuring two game modes and .... Play Kana Warrior / かなウォリアー

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https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000002.000060095.html?fbclid=IwAR0S332LYhvAwUzoMQGKYdh7vdtpMRIrsXLyMyA5ki2hMtRMeDT_z7k2GfM

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ラウンジ｜zoomしながらみんなで遊ぼう

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ZOOMしながら、みんなで遊ぼう！

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Genki 1 and 2: Self-Study Drills and Audio Files

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Genki 1 and 2: Self-Study Drills and Audio Files

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Genki Exercises - 3rd Edition | Genki Study Resources

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Genki Study Resources offers a vast collection of exercises for practicing what is taught in Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese.

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The latest Edition of Genki 2 (3rd Edition) Book 2 of 2.

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Kami needs full permissions to allow a seamless integration with Google Drive and the learning management system in use

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The latest Edition of the Genki 2 Workbook (3rd Edition)

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The latest Edition (3rd) of the Genki 1 Workbook.

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Genki Exercises - 3rd Edition | Genki Study Resources

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Genki Study Resources offers a vast collection of exercises for practicing what is taught in Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese.

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Lessons

Practice

Reading

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These are original lessons on this website based on the content of the textbook for beginner learners of Japanese, GENKI 1.
It corresponds to the second and third editions of textbooks.
Lessons can be started anywhere you like.
As a rule, one grammar is explained per lesson.
Please try it out as a preparation for or review of your schoolwork!

日本語初級学習者向けの教科書『げんき１』の内容に基づいた当サイトオリジナルレッスンです。
第二版と第三版の教科書に対応しています。
レッスンはお好きな所から始められます。
原則として１レッスンにつき１文法で解説しています。
学校の勉強の予習や復習にもぜひどうぞ！

For lessons on GENKI 2, click here!

『げんき２』のレッスンはこちらから！

For Hiragana and Katakana, Kanji practices, see the following pages.

ひらがなとカタカナ、漢字の練習は以下のページをご覧ください。

I've added a page of lesson-by-lesson summary exercises for the textbook!

教科書のレッスン毎のまとめ練習のページを追加しました！

There are also resources and additional exercises to help you learn Japanese here!

こちらのページに日本語学習に役立つ資料と追加練習もあります！

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It is a grammar explanation for the textbook GENKI I. Basically, each lesson explains one grammar. 『げんき１』の文法解説です。基本的に1レッスンにつき1文法ずつ解説します。

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Online quizzes, flashcards, exercises.

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Self-study Room offers a variety of online materials to support your learning with GENKI textbooks.

No Illegal Uploading, Please!

GENKI Videos　げんきな動画

GENKI Dialogue Videos （げんき会話ビデオ）

Video Clips for Culture Note（Culture Noteのビデオクリップ）
Video clips related to "Culture Note" columns in the Dialogue & Grammar section of GENKI. All scenes were shot in Japan.
(by Elizabeth Armstrong/Eric Faden [Bucknell University])

GENKI Apps　げんきなアプリ

The official GENKI apps are excellent tools for firmly mastering vocabulary, kanji, and conjugation, with the aid of native recordings and fun illustrations

GENKI Drills　げんきなドリル

Sets of cards for studying GENKI are available through Quizlet at the links in the Drills column below.

Note that the audio pronunciations given on Quizlet are computer generated, and thus differ from the human recordings provided for GENKI app cards.

You can watch the Dialogue videos for each lesson by clicking the links in the Videos column on the right.

GENKI 1

GENKI 2

Drills

Videos

Lesson

Vocabulary

Conjugation

Kana / Kanji

Links　リンク集

Please note that some of the following websites are based on the contents of GENKI 2nd Edition.

Genki Kanji Quiz
A website that offers a set of interactive exercises for practicing kanji learned in GENKI. It helps you recognize the kanji through multiple choice and gap-fill exercises, jumble modules, and crosswords. (by Edith Paillat [Victoria University of Wellington])

KanjiAlive
Web-based tool to help Japanese-language learners read and write kanji. It contains a database of 1,235 kanji. Students can easily search for kanji in a certain lesson of GENKI by inputting the lesson number. (by Kanji Alive Team [The University of Chicago])

uPal: Associative Kanji Learning
This website offers essential information on every kanji that appear in the major Japanese language textbooks for elementary level. You can easily access kanji that appear in GENKI I and II, and learn their reading, meaning, stroke order (animations), and relational kanji knowledge. Kanji Matching Quizzes for these kanji are also offered. (by Joji Miwa)

MyKikitori―Practice Your Japanese Listening Skills
A listening practice site that contains original dialogues based on the grammar and vocabulary introduced in GENKI I. Two speeds, natural and slow, are available for each dialogue, and all the dialogues are accompanied by comprehension questions in audio format. (by Aiko Sato [San Francisco State University])

NIHONGO KIKUSASAIZU
36 original short, animated videos, 3 episodes each for Lesson 1 to Lesson 12. Both the Japanese and English transcripts are accessible on the website. There is a link to some interactive listening comprehension exercises. [Created by Nihongo Kikusasaizu Project Team.]

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This page is for learners using GENKI: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese. It provides links to videos and other online self-study resources.

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Link to PDF of the Genki 1 Textbook (Latest Edition)

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Kami needs full permissions to allow a seamless integration with Google Drive and the learning management system in use

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Official Website of The Japan Times.

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Self-study Room offers a variety of online materials to support your learning with GENKI textbooks.

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GENKI Videos　げんきな動画

GENKI Dialogue Videos （げんき会話ビデオ）

Video Clips for Culture Note（Culture Noteのビデオクリップ）
Video clips related to "Culture Note" columns in the Dialogue & Grammar section of GENKI. All scenes were shot in Japan.
(by Elizabeth Armstrong/Eric Faden [Bucknell University])

GENKI Apps　げんきなアプリ

The official GENKI apps are excellent tools for firmly mastering vocabulary, kanji, and conjugation, with the aid of native recordings and fun illustrations

GENKI Drills　げんきなドリル

Sets of cards for studying GENKI are available through Quizlet at the links in the Drills column below.

Note that the audio pronunciations given on Quizlet are computer generated, and thus differ from the human recordings provided for GENKI app cards.

You can watch the Dialogue videos for each lesson by clicking the links in the Videos column on the right.

GENKI 1

GENKI 2

Drills

Videos

Lesson

Vocabulary

Conjugation

Kana / Kanji

Links　リンク集

Please note that some of the following websites are based on the contents of GENKI 2nd Edition.

Genki Kanji Quiz
A website that offers a set of interactive exercises for practicing kanji learned in GENKI. It helps you recognize the kanji through multiple choice and gap-fill exercises, jumble modules, and crosswords. (by Edith Paillat [Victoria University of Wellington])

KanjiAlive
Web-based tool to help Japanese-language learners read and write kanji. It contains a database of 1,235 kanji. Students can easily search for kanji in a certain lesson of GENKI by inputting the lesson number. (by Kanji Alive Team [The University of Chicago])

uPal: Associative Kanji Learning
This website offers essential information on every kanji that appear in the major Japanese language textbooks for elementary level. You can easily access kanji that appear in GENKI I and II, and learn their reading, meaning, stroke order (animations), and relational kanji knowledge. Kanji Matching Quizzes for these kanji are also offered. (by Joji Miwa)

MyKikitori―Practice Your Japanese Listening Skills
A listening practice site that contains original dialogues based on the grammar and vocabulary introduced in GENKI I. Two speeds, natural and slow, are available for each dialogue, and all the dialogues are accompanied by comprehension questions in audio format. (by Aiko Sato [San Francisco State University])

NIHONGO KIKUSASAIZU
36 original short, animated videos, 3 episodes each for Lesson 1 to Lesson 12. Both the Japanese and English transcripts are accessible on the website. There is a link to some interactive listening comprehension exercises. [Created by Nihongo Kikusasaizu Project Team.]

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This page is for learners using GENKI: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese. It provides links to videos and other online self-study resources.

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Hiragana  - Complete Games and Resources

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Hiragana  - Complete Games and Resources

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From Level 0 to Level 5

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にほんごたどく｜NPO多言語多読

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Books listed below are free for on-site reading, PDF-downloading and printing for making books.

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Blooket.com
User: MisawaSensei

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Search and discover new sets from a large collection created by users.

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Genki Study Games | Japanese Language Learning

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Genki Study Games is a supplemental tool to help you study using the Genki textbooks. Learn Japanese through vocabulary games that follow each chapter.

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Additional Tutorial Guides per Chapter - Genki 1 and 2. Full YouTube Series.

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genki "genki 1" "genki japanese" japanese japan "learn japanese" "japanese lessons" "japanese grammar" nihongo 日本語 "study japanese" "how to learn japanese" "...

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I teach Japanese. Sometimes I teach from Genki. Sometimes Quartet. Sometimes, I free myself from the shackles of the textbook gods and create something unique, born out of the primordial chaos of... Yeah, you get the point.

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Home " " " Japanese 101 " " Japanese Genki Lesson 2 H5P Quiz

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Genki Exercises - 3rd Edition | Genki Study Resources

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Genki Study Resources offers a vast collection of exercises for practicing what is taught in Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese.

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Immerse yourself in the rich culture of Japan through our curated list of the top 100 Japanese dramas. From heartwarming romance to thrilling action, find your next must-watch drama here.