Links
Indispensable Resources for Students
- JapanesePod101
Free Japanese lesson podcasts, including beginner lessons, intermediate lessons,
culture lessons, and survival phrases. All very fun to listen to. Paid basic
and premium services allow access to lesson notes and a learning center.
- Jim Breen's Japanese Page
One of the most indispensible Japanese resources on the Web. Home of the WWWJDIC
online dictionary (based on Jim's JMDict/EDICT projects) and related resources.
- WWWJDIC Word Search Direct Link
- Space ALC featuring Eijirou on the Web
The Eijirou dataset, though occasionally beset with some strange English, is
a fantastic way to find phrases and sentences which demonstrate the usage of
words, and to find translations of common phrases in English.
- Online Sanseido Dictionary
Featuring kokugo, wa-ei, and ei-wa lookup, this is the dictionary I turn to when I really
want to understand a word in detail.
- Excite Translator
Let's face it — no machine translation is good, much less perfect. But Excite's
machine transation is less bad than some of the alternatives, and it is useful
sometimes to help suggest ideas in composition or reading. Just don't rely on its
accuracy for anything critical and always follow up with another source.
- Rikai
Reading help and instant word lookup for Japanese websites. Enter a Japanese
website in the box and Rikai will bring up the page with mouseover popups for
each Japanese word showing the reading, meaning, and even a breakdown of the kanji.
- Google Language Tools
Working at a more advanced level, sometimes its useful to observe a word in
it's native habitat: in the context of sentences produced by many random native
speakers. That's when I turn to Google Language Tools. Set the language to Japanese,
and search away.
Other Favorites
- Radio Mukashi Banashi
Japanese fairy tales (mukashi banashi) read slowly and deliberately. Great
for listening practice.
I have removed the many other links that were here. Lots were stale, many weren't linking to
very good stuff since I had never sorted through it, and at least one site had turned into
porn.
I have captured everything with a hint of usefulness to my Delicious bookmarks,
which you can find here. Use the tag "Japanese"
for language related links, and "Japan" for everything else.
Eventually I will restore the best links to this page with better explanations.