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Top 10 Online Resources for Learning Japanese for Free

Started by tofugu · 8 ヶ月 ago

I’m really proud and excited to announce Tofugu’s first annual “Top 10 Online Resources for Learning Japanese for Free” list, which includes an e-book that’s available for download at the end of the article. There’s also vi ... Continue reading »

62 comments

  • Captain_Ron

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Great resources! Thanks Koichi
    reply
  • Arky

    8 ヶ月 ago

    My LiveStation refuses to work for me, Technology can be so evil sometimes.
    I was really looking forward to looking at some Japanese women selling some bright pink spandex that I just have to have.

    Thanks again for the lesson, Looking forward to the cooking one tomorrow I even planned out a sleeping schedule to fit in for the whole thing. Ciao~
    reply
  • QuinsY

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Hello everyone!,

    Koichiさん　おげんきですか？　ｔｈｉｓ has got to be one of, if not "the"　most Awesome article posted on Tofugu.com ever!　Thank you so much for your hard work in helping us - eager to learn　-　students here on Tofugu.com　and youtube.com and now everywhere on the　interzwebの!　（‘＾＿＾）　。

    Finally ！　I've been waiting for ’so（’。＿。） long to be able to　show people the e-book that you had let us ”edufire-class” attendees download　way back when　（こ。＾）　.


    ーQuinsY. 　( ’Have been using twitter now also thanks to Koichi-sensei)。
    reply
  • QK

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Really great list. I've seen a few of these before (mainly just Jim Breen, Lang-8, etc.) but most of the top 5 was new to me. I think this site could be pretty useful for those studying the language.
    Covers lots of different subjects related to language, and has some other general information on the culture. http://www.timwerx.net/home/index.htm
    reply
  • Mrwindupbird

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Awesome Websites, but I have a question. On Lang8 what is stopping the corrector from just intentionally messing someone's sentence up that they wrote? Is it moderated well enough or does it have to go through an approval process before being posted?
    reply
  • Arky

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Well I'm *guessing* that there is some sort of report feature and I'm guessing it moderated fairly often considering how popular it is.
    reply
  • Jomann

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese is REALLY good, it will help you become a native level pretty fast.
    reply
  • jara

    8 ヶ月 ago

    thank you!!!all this is very helpful,tofugu is great!!
    ^_^
    koichi!!the best!!hahaha

    Jara

    P.S.I have a present waiting for you...
    reply
  • WOTDsctoo

    8 ヶ月 ago

    "first annual" ?? :O
    Another list next year?

    Anyway, awesome resources! Thanks! :D
    reply
  • Maciel

    8 ヶ月 ago

    i agree with your decision in putting tae kims guide in the top 3 of the top 10 because it really is helpful
    and even though i havnt checked out all of these top 10 uhh things, im sure they will be a great help and i just want to say thanks for all of this (this being tofugu.com and all that u know ) and letting me be a part of your community =P
    i don't know what im saying
    just thanks haha
    now i gotta go do history homework >_<
    reply
  • 8Dhi

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Beauty! Great videos/article! I can't wait to use Rikaichan and iKnow!

    d(n_n)b
    reply
  • chieh

    8 ヶ月 ago

    thanks koichi, for giving us these helpful websites and tools.
    reply
  • kevinnwhat

    8 ヶ月 ago

    tae kim pwns all
    reply
  • Flaire

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Holy thank you.
    I think you just won the internet.
    reply
  • jj

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Hi dude -

    Excellent stuff!

    Let me suggest another free site:

    http://www.mangolanguages.com/

    There's a free Japanese course there and it's pretty good. If you like you can upgrade to a subscription and get more sophisticated stuff, like the ability to download lessons to your iPod, etc. Check it out!
    reply
  • zattsu-ooru

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Amazing post
    reply
  • moshi_moshi

    8 ヶ月 ago

    awesome koichi! thanks for the post, well worth the wait for those who wern't at the edufire thing, thanks again x
    reply
  • Jeshii

    8 ヶ月 ago

    This is why you are the king. Amazing entry.
    reply
  • Sebby

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Priceless! ... and not only priceless but also free.

    You rock!
    reply
  • Tami

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Great post Koichi! Let us know when you are offering free classes on edufire again! We love them
    reply
  • koichi

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Pretty soon ;)
    reply
  • Catherine

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Thank you!! I'm sure this will be very useful : )
    reply
  • jj

    8 ヶ月 ago

    ANother resource I like is About.com's page on the Japanese language, in particular the Word of the Day

    http://japanese.about.com/od/wordoftheday/Word_...

    You can sign up to get through e-mail. It has word/sentence/sound.
    reply
  • Caitlin

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Livestation will become almost necessary soon. Thanks for the link! I had no idea about this service and was planning on getting a NHK subscription.
    reply
  • Tofugu_Erin

    8 ヶ月 ago

    NHK hasn't worked for me in a long time, though :{
    reply
  • alicia

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Thank you so much! I'd never heard of four (all pretty high up), so I'm checking those out now. I'm so addicted to Livestation, it's not funny. Animax is really good, and so are the little kids' programs on the major stations (it's morning tv). QVC was fascinating initially, but the anime is more to my level right now (and it has a story).
    I second About.com, but also suggest JapanesePod101. I'm taking classes, but lately I've been searching for the grammar points in the textbook on that site, and they're pretty good for reinforcement, if not pure learning on its own. They have several different levels, so it's not just for beginners (they even have "newbie" lessons) or more advanced learners either. Of course, if you pay you'll get pdf files of the lessons and some other stuff (broken-down kaiwa line-by-line mp3s), and the pdfs are good (free trial for a week or two gets you everything, so you can try it out), but you don't have to pay for the podcasts themselves.
    reply
  • Sam watashi wa

    8 ヶ月 ago

    awsome good way to get started or get freshen up
    great post :p

    i know i will be using them quite often :D
    thanks.

    ps - omg just heard the best song on Sony Music japan haha
    woo for livestation
    reply
  • koichi

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Glad they were helpful!
    reply
  • bokuwaChauserdesu

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Koichi-san (Or should I say "Koichi-sensei"?)

    Arigato gozaimasu. I now have all of the sites from both videos bookmarked!
    reply
  • Russ (iKnow!)

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Great post. We're glad you're getting words into your head with iKnow!

    That journal correction feature on Lang8 is very cool. At iKnow!, we'll be doing something along similar lines in the future so learners of Japanese can benefit from our large Japanese user base (currently around 300,000 users). But if you journal on iKnow! now and make some friends, I think you'll find Japanese speakers will enjoy commenting on your post and giving friendly advice.

    I would also add japanesepod101.com to that list. They offer premium services, but the bulk of the content (the podcasts) is free and it covers a lot of timely and practical expressions that you would never pick up from a class or book.
    reply
  • Romina

    8 ヶ月 ago

    I'm just want to thank you for share all these with other people who are interested in learning japanese. Actually you open a door for me.

    Mil gracias ^^
    reply
  • koichi

    8 ヶ月 ago

    I'm glad :)
    reply
  • エミ★

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Thanks for putting these up! I use a few of them already so that's a start :)

    btw I found a download for Ｊapanese emotes (ex: (；ﾟДﾟ), ヽ(・∀・ )ﾉ)for Windows computers a while back but never saved the link. Do you know of any?

    ありがとう、コウイチさん！
    reply
  • kurisu

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Koichi-san, thanks a bunch for compiling this list! i'm a part of a forum that has a tiny section discussing our personal adventures in studying Japanese, so i plugged this entry in there :D
    hmm, i recall seeing your plug for Lang-8 quite a while ago.
    i mulled over it for a few months...
    i just joined yesterday...
    and already...

    this site is effing amazing.

    thank you so much for recommending it. i'm trying to get a few friends on board too ^-^

    oh, and happy belated birthday!
    reply
  • jtiger87

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Thanks for posting all these great online Japanese resourses.
    I've been on lang-8 for a long time now, after you recomended it on youtube.
    I have invited you as friend, but you didn't accept. :/ :(

    Btw, happy birthday! (a couple days too late :P)
    reply
  • Chris_paros

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Ok, this might be just a teensie few days late but: WOW!! Lang-8 is absolutely fricking amazing!!! I don't know how I got along without it!! I've had it for two days and already I've learned expressions for things I didn't know in Japanese and even a compliment!! It's just soooo easy to write whatever you like and almost immediately you get a message with the correction from another user!! Thank you in the billions Koichi!!!! P.S: this has to be the longest comment I've written here =P
    reply
  • Mia-Carla

    8 ヶ月 ago

    This was acctually really useful. There's around 5 I had never even heard off. Again with the amazing tips. :] Cheers.
    reply
  • Musouka

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Thanks for the great list!

    What's your user name on iKnow?
    reply
  • Tackada

    8 ヶ月 ago

    I use iKnow and Tae Kim's now, but Anki is good for learning stuff and I like to use KeyHoleTV for Japanese television.
    reply
  • Seth

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Usually you're pretty good, but today u are really the man. A few of these look so good for learning. I'm already using them.
    reply
  • David Ross

    8 ヶ月 ago

    http://mogo2.jp/top is a good alternative to Twitter if you just want all Japanese to read.
    reply
  • Nukemarine

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Great links. I would add that http://kanji.koohii.com and http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com are two great sites to use.

    Reviewing the Kanji is a great flash card application that goes hand in hand with the book "Remembering the Kanji", which has shared user stories to help put the ability to recognize and write kanji in your hands.

    All Japanese All The Time is just a great blog to get motivation and ideas to become FLUENT (speaking, listening, reading and writing) in Japanese in a reasonable amount of time (less than two years).
    reply
  • Ally

    8 ヶ月 ago

    I'm trying to use livestation but i can only find about six japanese channels, and only one works! anyone know what i could be doing wrong?
    reply
  • Schism

    8 ヶ月 ago

    Wow. I will forever be in your debt for putting this list of resources together. Any single one would have made my day, but to have a full list of amazing aids blows my mind.

    Now my only problem is where do I start! O_o
    reply
  • Kerubin

    7 ヶ月 ago

    @Ally

    Same here on the Livestation front - it was mentioned there are about 15 Japanese channels - I can't bloody well find them. Help god dam it.

    p.s I nearly wet my pants when i used Rikaichan for the first time. I will be writing about my Japanese learning adventures here, so drop by http://learning-japanesey.blogspot.com/
    reply
  • GameGod652

    7 ヶ月 ago

    I downloaded Rikaichan but It doesn't work for some reason.
    reply
  • sendaiben

    6 ヶ月 ago

    For really good kanji and vocab learning, aimed at the JLPT and kanji kentei, check out renshuu.org

    It's free and the best site I have seen for cramming kanji and words into the brain.
    reply
  • sakura

    6 ヶ月 ago

    check
    www.learn-japanese.co.in this site
    reply
  • Alexis

    6 ヶ月 ago

    Thanks for the share. :) Great resources.
    reply
  • chi

    6 ヶ月 ago

    please try this site, I think it is good for practicing Kanji :

    http://www.readthekanji.com/
    reply
  • violagirl23

    5 ヶ月 ago

    Don't forget, Tae Kim also has a great forum here: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/forum/ There's also me and many others there to help you if you have any questions, in addition to asking questions of our own.
    reply
  • Baghera

    5 ヶ月 ago

    I.Love.You.
    no homo.
    arigatou!!!
    reply
  • youtube

    4 ヶ月 ago

    whats your lang-8 account?
    reply
  • BlueNanoBox

    4 ヶ月 ago

    I actually found your video on youtube, and I just have to say thanks a million! (even though I am already using lang-8 and 電子辞書 )

    I took my JLPT level 3 in December (fingers crossed...) and now I feel kind of stuck, so hopefully the things on the list can give me a little push.
    reply
  • EditorDave

    4 ヶ月 ago

    Wow! This post is so good, I hope you don't mind if I link to it from my Squidoo lens on Language Learning. Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu!
    reply
  • koichi

    4 ヶ月 ago

    No minding here - thank you for linking!
    reply
  • Seth

    3 ヶ月 ago

    Why has the Iknow site change so much??? =| it was better before
    reply
  • Denis

    3 ヶ月 ago

    Thanks Koichi for your article. I will put a link to your article on my site: Under 日本語の勉強。
    I have been using Rikaichan for quite a while now and it really help to learn the kanji (help to forget as well as one tends to get too lazy, but this is another question). I will test the rest of your sugestions.

    Again thank you for your tips and congratulation for your blog

    http://denisevents.wordpress.com/

    Denis
    reply
  • thuy

    2 ヶ月 ago

    arigatou gozaimasu.hontou ni!
    reply
  • ginkgo7

    2 ヶ月 ago

    gee thx!! ^_^
    reply
  • Pexe

    2 ヶ月 ago

    Hey, have you heard of Namasensei? If it wasn't for him I would've NEVER started practicing. xD
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZEA54VJEdE&feat...

    Basically, he has video classes in youtube(homemade), that teach you hiragana, grammar, and all those begginer stuff. But he does it in such a motivational way that nothing else can.

    This is THE way to shake your lazyness off and actually start studying.

    Hey, lemme know if you already knew it, and what you think of it. ^^
    reply
  • Japanese FAST

    3 週間 ago

    Japanese FAST is good too. It's not free but it's cheap and easy to get started.
    reply

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