Jim's Home Page

Jim Breen's Japanese Page (Details of recent updates.)

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Introduction Welcome to my Japanese Page. As many readers of this page will know, I have an on-going interest in Japan, its people and language. This has led to a number of activities bringing together Japanese and my professional activities in computing and telecommunications. I have assembled this set of pages: (a) to provide information about a number of my projects in the area of Japanese computing and dictionaries, (b) to provide links to some of the resources available on the WWW on Japanese matters. In The News These pages were mentioned in an article in the Asahi Evening News, by Andrew Horvat, whose pages have a link below. William Gordon has written an extended essay on these pages and the WWWJDIC dictionary server. David Jolly mentioned WWWJDIC in an article in the International Herald Tribune (backup copy as the original has expired). Alexander Jacoby mentioned WWWJDIC in an article in the Japan Times. In early 2014 I did an interview for the JQ Magazine, which is for the JET Alumni Community. It covers my engagement with Japan, as well as some comments about the JET program, etc. Contact and Links Feel free to email me at: jimbreen@gmail.com about the various Japanese projects described on this page. I will try very hard to reply quickly, but I get a lot of mail, and long letters may take a while. If you are thinking of emailing me about other things, especially to ask me questions not related to my projects, please read this page first, as it may save us both some time. (Also, Gmail is prone to classifying regular mail as spam and I sometimes don't notice things in the spam folder. Put "Japan" or "Japanese" somewhere in the Subject to catch my attention, and if I don't reply, try sending it again.) If you want to link from this page, please follow the instructions on this page. LINKS TO INTERESTING SITES Most of this page is made up of links to some interesting Web sites relating to Japan and Japanese information. They are broadly broken down by category (see the menu list to the left). Some of the links are dead; I am may try to re-establish them, but in the meantime I have marked them with a (thumbs-down.) Please let me know if you encounter a dead link.

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• The Language Gulper site has a very interesting and informative essay on Japanese. (Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati - Wed, 17 July 2013)
• The Essential Japan Guide is an easy-to-understand guide to the best of Japan, with a special emphasis on providing useful info for first-time Japan travelers. (Shane Jones - Thu, 8 Apr 2010)
• TokyoTopGuide is a site with a lot of general touristy information, e.g. best Tokyo attractions, coolest Tokyo facts, things to do in Tokyo, etc. (TokyoTopGuide - Tue, 29 Sep 2009)
• Highlighting Japan is an online magazine of mostly feel-good articles about Japan. Produced by the Japanese Cabinet Office. (Jim - Mon, 10 Dec 2007)
• The Web Japan site is a gateway to a mass of information about Japan. It has a huge and well-maintained link collection. (The site is sponsored by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)
• A huge Japanese Language link collection.
• Ben Bullock's Alternative sci.lang.japan FAQ is an interesting and highly readable collection of information about Things Japanese.
• The Best-of-the-Web page on Japan has some useful links. (Jim - Fri, 18 Mar 2011)

• Free Online Japanese Text to Speech tool. (Seems to work quite well for Japanese - Jim). (iSpeech - Thu, 05 Nov 2015)
• Keith Wilkinson's ISP* Japan FAQ. A bit dated now, but a wealth of information about Internet connections, etc. in Japan. (Jim Breen - Wed, 23 May 2012)
• A terrific gallery of Unicode fonts compiled by David McCreedy. (Jim - Sun, 2 Nov 2008)
• The nihongo-computing mailing list is a useful source of information about using Japanese with computers. Members of the list can read the archives.
• An article about configuring HP-UX input methods for CJK languages These IMEs are included with HP-UX's "Asian System Environment (ASE)". ATOK X has become the preferred Japanese IM, and the full version of it is now included with ASE. (Howto - Japanese version. (Mark Smith - Sun, 30 July 2006)
• Time Eyre's howto on using the Japanese-language version of TeX, pTeX, etc. (PDF file.) (Jim - Sat, 20 May 2006)
• A WWW Japanese Input Method by Taku Kudo at NAIST. Very handy if you're away from a PC with an IME operating. (Jim - Tue, 7 Feb 2006)
• For the new Ubuntu Linux, some pages on Japanese input and fonts, and a link to the Japanese localization team. (Jim - Tue, 7 Feb 2006, updated 24 Oct 2007)
• A step-by step guide to creating Japanese documents using the LaTeX typesetting system under Linux (Mark Alford - Sat, 17 Dec 2005)
• An actively-maintained resource for Gentoo Linux users on setting up Japanese. (Sudrien - Tue, 24 May 2005)
• Information detailing how to get Japanese language support (fonts and input) into Sun Solaris . (Eric Enright - Mon, 30 May 2005)
• A bit dated now but still strongly recommended for Linux users is Scott Robbins' Inputting Japanese text page.
• Useful information on Microsoft's AppLocale utility that allows users to run a legacy application on Windows XP without changing to the code-page/system locale needed by that particular application.
• Another site on using Japanese with MS Windows. (The links to the English are at the bottom of the page.)
• This site (in Japanese) has an excellent summary of input methods for Unix and Linux.
• Gregg Tavares, who wrote the page about Japanese on WinCE (below) has also written an excellent and detailed page on how to use the Japanese IME in Windows XP.
• For Mac users there is an excellent summary on Christopher Bolton's Japanese for Your Mac page.
• Declan Software's Guide to Installing and Using Microsoft's Japanese IME is a good introdiction for those who don't have the IME.
• Gregg Tavarres has produced a very detailed page on using a Japanese WinCE machine with handwritten kanji recognition and JWPce.
• The Tokyo PC Users Group has an interesting site, and has informative meetings and articles.
• for users of my favourite operating system, Linux, there is the Tokyo Linux Users Group (TLUG).
• Gyula Zsigri's CJK Quick Start page. Information on how to get a list of applications to run on various platforms.

• Wacton.Desu is a Japanese and kanji dictionary library for .NET, allowing other .NET applications to programmatically interface with JMdict, JMnedict, KANJIDIC, and more. (William Acton - Thu, 13 Jul 2017)
• Kanji Trainer is a mobile app for learning and exploring kanji. (Jim - Sun, 04 Jun 2017)
• Tomash Brechko has developed an interesting Kanji Yomi Android app for learning and practising kanji readings. (Jim - Thu, 01 Jun 2017)
• rikaichan is a Chrome port of rikaichan (below). (Toby Howard - Sun, 29 May 2016)
• Safarikai is a Safari version of rikaichan. (Currently has a 2yo version of EDICT.) (Toby Howard - Sun, 29 May 2016)
• rikaichan is a popup Japanese-English dictionary extension for Firefox and Thunderbird. Hover the mouse over Japanese text in the browser. (Uses EDICT) (Vincent ISAMBART - Fri, 21 Apr 2006, revised Lone - Sun, 5 Oct 2008, Jim - 29 May 2016)
• A completely rewritten version of the GTK "Gjiten" application, called Gjiten Kai is available. A Windows build iincluded. Many new functions. (Olivier Drevet - Fri, 29 Jan 2016)
• For Ruby programmers there's a new WWWJDIC gem developed by Marco Bresciani. Uses the backdoor API. (Jim - Wed, 25 Jun 2014)
• JiShop - electronic kanji dictionary (for Windows, iOS, Android, WinPhone, etc.). (updated version) (Vadim Smolensky - Tue, 14 May 2013)
• Smart Kanji is an Android kanji learning tool. Claims that it adapts to the user's theme and provides an optimal learning course. (baka-neko - Mon, 13 May 2013)
• A Dictionary of Japanese Proverbs for iOS, which uses material from JMdict for its keyword index. (sazanami - Sat, 16 Mar 2013)
• If you really need romaji, then the Romaji.org site does quite a good job of transliteration. (Jim - Sat, 9 Mar 2013)
• Koggle Koggle is a word-search game, much like Boggle, that uses kanji and kana instead of English letters. The dictionary definitions are sourced from JMdict. (Oge Nnadi - Tue, 18 Sep 2012)
• Jitenize is a free extension for OpenOffice Writer that creates a JMdict-based footnote for each Japanese word in the text. (Demonstration) (FUYO SOFT - Fri, 11 May 2012)
• Harigana is an game for iOS devices that resembles Scrabble but uses Hiragana instead of roman letters and Game Center as social gaming platform to connect players. The JMdict dictionary is used to control valid words. Meaning and translation is given in English, German and French. (BRILLIANTSERVICE CO. LTD. - Fri, 13 Apr 2012)
• iNippon is an iPhone app based on the book "The Japanese-English Dictionary for Conversation about Japan". Great for exploring Japanese history, culture, geography, idioms, etc, while learning Japanese. (Johannes Lundberg - Thu, 1 Mar 2012)
• ZKanji is an open-source Japanese-English-Japanese dictionary and study aid for Windows. (LjL - Mon, 28 Nov 2011)
• K-Flash is a kanji flashcard program for Windows XP/7 that teaches the meanings of 2,136 Joyo Kanji using "disciplined" mnemonics. Free trial version includes the first 150 kanji (approximately). (Todd Wysuph - Tue, 18 Oct 2011)
• Kanji Dictionary: a Japanese-English dictionary for Nokia phones, based on WWWJDic. Has animated stroke order diagrams for over 2800 kanji, JLPT kanji classifications and a flash card viewer. (Antti Lehtonen - Sun, 26 Jun 2011)
• WordDive has a free trial of learning and practising hiragana and katakana characters. (Juhapetri Stein - Thu, 27 Jan 2011)
• Midori is a Japanese dictionary app for iPad/iPhone based on JMdict, KANJIDIC, and ENAMDICT. Its features include kanji handwriting recognition, stroke order diagrams and animations, example sentences with furigana, text translation, and flashcards. (jitouch - Mon, 10 Jan 2011)
• A Kanji Quiz (Google Chrome extension) based on the Leitner spaced repetition system and integrated into NihongoUp kanji lessons. (Philip Seyfi - Sat, 18 Dec 2010)
• Japan Goggles is an iPhone app which claims to translate Japanese words to English from live camera, still photo or album images. Uses EDICT and ENAMDICT. (Iulian Florea - Fri, 26 Nov 2010)
• Renshuu is a Java-based Kanji practice app. (Alexander - Sat, 20 Nov 2010)
• Pyrikai is a plugin for the "gedit" text editor which allows rikaichan-style mouseover popups of meanings of Japanese words. (Linux) (Mark - Fri, 29 Oct 2010)
• AEdict is a free, GPL3 English-Japanese dictionary app for Android mobile phones which uses EDICT. Does not require japanese keyboard. Internet access is used only to download the dictionary - the application itself works offline. Features: radical search, kanjipad, kanji analysis, SKIP search, optionally shows romaji instead of hiragana/katakana (Martin Vysny - Tue, 5 Oct 2010)
• Learn Hiragana is a "fast-paced, fun game" for learning hiragana quickly. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux. (Teruhito Morimoto - Wed, 8 Sep 2010)
• JECD is a fairly simple English/Chinese/Japanese dictionary program for Windows/Linux. (Jim - Sat, 4 Sep 2010)
• Wakaru is an iPhone app which uses the EDICT dictionary to easily search for unknown words while browsing Japanese web sites or reading text documents (Aozora Bunko format). Wakaru can remember the searched words in the form of "studylists" (Miho Matsuoka - Wed, 1 Sep 2010)
• For the Android smartphone, Macias Abraham's Kanji Writing Game. Uses Kanjidic and handwriting software. (Jim - Sun, 15 Aug 2010)
• Abel Camarena's Suiteki set of dictionary applications for mobile phones. (Jim - Wed, 7 Jul 2010)
• JEMAP, Japanese to English Mapping Translator a new computer-aided translation software tool based on mapping from Japanese to English grammar. Claims to be good for documents where sentences are usually more than forty words long. (Pedro Marcal - Mon, 9 Nov 2009)
• The KanjiBox application is available as an iPhone application and an online/Facebook version. (Dave - Thu, 25 Feb 2010)
• wishoTouch is a word and kanji dictionary for iPhone based on JMdict/Kanjidic. (sazanami - Thu, 3 Sep 2009)
• JBrute. A fast, complete and easy to use Japanese/English, English/Japanese dictionary program for Windows. Includes the dictionary definition (EDict), the Kanji definition (Kanjidic) and example sentences (Tanka Corpus). (Michael Rosen - Sat, 8 Aug 2009)
• Kanji Fuda is a game to help students of Japanese quickly memorize Japanese Kanji. A free "Lite" version is currently available in the iPhone App Store; more advanced versions are under development. Versions for Android and BlackBerry are planned. (Evan Owens - Mon, 8 Jun 2009)
• Nihongoup is a Japanese language reviewing tool. Options inlude: improving your kana IME typing speed, reviewing JLPT kanji and vocabulary, learning how to correctly use particles (Philip Seyfi - Sat, 9 May 2009)
• (Wed, 15 Apr 2009)
• ExpressJapanese, a flashcard and vocabulary quiz package for Java enabled mobile phones, level is suitable for JLPT3 and GCSE students. (Simon Keen - Wed, 15 Apr 2009)
• Shinkanji for iPhone and iPod touch - Japanese dictionary and reference application for learning kanji. Nice animated stroke order diagrams and multiple search methods including handwriting recognition. Uses KANJIDIC for the kanji definitions and readings and JMDict for the word dictionary and list of common compounds containing a given kanji. (Benoit Cerrina - Tue, 6 Jan 2009, amended 30 Mar 2009)
• Tagaini Jisho is a free Japanese vocabulary/kanji dictionary and study assistant, featuring stroke order animations for more than 6000 kanjis. It also supports tagging and annotations on entries, training, production of printed material, and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Uses JMdict, KANJDIC, etc.) (Gnurou - Mon, 6 Oct 2008)
• Imawa (formerly Kotoba) is an iPod/iPhone application based on JMdict. All 170,000 dictionary entries in your pocket totally free of charge. Visit the Apple AppStore now to install. (Pierre-Phi - Sun, 28 Sep 2008)
• KanjiCruncher: English-Japanese dictionary/translator for Windows XP/Vista. Uses a built-in EDICT dictionary and online Google Japanese-English translator. (Jonathan Smith - Wed, 11 Jun 2008)
• Firefox add-on for practicing kanji. Replaces the first letter of words with the kanji corresponding to their meaning. (kanjilish - Wed, 7 May 2008)
• Palm TaCo is a free and open-source Palm application that allows you to select and view pairs of Japanese/English sentences from the Tanaka Corpus on your device. (Ricardo Mendonca Ferreira - Thu, 21 Feb 2008)
• JMDict.NET is a Japanese Multi-lingual Dictionary for the .NET Platform. Kana and JASCII IME included. (Based on JMdict dictionary file.) (X-[Vr]bL1s5 - Sun, 14 Oct 2007)
• Japanese flash cards for Java enabled mobile phones, level is suitable for JLPT4 students. Learn vocabulary in Kanji, Hiragana & Romaji. Many example sentences to help students make progress. (Simon Keen - Mon, 30 Jul 2007)
• nihongobenkyo.org is a public dictionary server providing free Japanese dictionaries. It allows to look up words from dictionary applications compatible with the DICT protocol such as GNOME dictionary, KDict or Fantasdic. (Mathieu Blondel - Mon, 30 Apr 2007)
• Language Aid is a plugin-based, system-wide text lookup engine for Mac OS X. It can be used to perform Japanese dictionary lookups on almost any text in the operating system with the included WWWJDIC plugin. (snielsen - Fri, 13 Apr 2007)
• Simple web-based kanji flashcard generator for photo capable iPods (Gabor Bognar - Tue, 27 Mar 2007)
• Sven Groot's Pocket Dictionary package for Windows Mobile handhelds. (Jim - Mon, 5 Mar 2007)
• A handwriting input method for Sven Groot's Pocket Dictionary package. (Jim - Mon, 5 Mar 2007)
• mKana is a free cellphone Java game to help study of hiragana, katakana, and romaji. New characters are automatically introduced based on your level of mastery and a handy reference table is included to help look up unfamiliar characters. (Sieow Yeong Huah - Sat, 3 Mar 2007)
• Kanji Recall is a freeware cellphone aid to learning kanji. (Ronen Akri - Tue, 12 Dec 2006)
• Hiragana Recall and Katakana Recall allow practice of hiragana and katakana on a cellphone by displaying either a character and four romaji or vice versa. (Freeware) (Ronen Akri - Mon, 20 Nov 2006)
• Flazzle is a Windows dictionary with bookmarks, Kanji radical lookups, a spaced repetition flashcard system and Japanese input. It imports around 30 formats including Edict, JFC, Wadoku and delimited text. (David Morrissey - Mon, 18 Sep 2006)
• M-Kanji-SuDoKu - a free (distributed under GPL) Sudoku game for mobile phones (J2ME platform). (leopardo.f - Fri, 15 Sep 2006)
• KanjiFlashCard , free software for reviewing the meanings and readings of kanji, with exercises. This software keeps information about your errors,for later review. Descriptions and screenshots on the website... (in french) (kamui - Fri, 25 Aug 2006)
• Mined is a powerful text editor with extensive Unicode and CJK support. Available for both Linux (including console mode) and Windows. (Thomas Wolff - Wed, 31 May 2006)
• Stackz is a popular and effective flashcard system (Jim - Tue, 2 May 2006)
• From the makers of Stackz, KanjiBrowze is a dictionary package for EDICT-format dictionaries. (Jim - Tue, 2 May 2006)
• XHTML Ruby Support is a Mozilla Firefox add-on by Shimoda Hiroshi which allows Firefox to display furigana created with W3C ruby markup. (Kendon Stubbs - Mon, 27 Mar 2006)
• Tango is a general vocabulary flashcard program designed to run on Java-enabled mobile phones. Optimised for Japanese language learning Tango will display Hiragana and Katakana on any phone that can run it. The trial version offers about 100 terms, and the licenced version (very cheap) allows you to import your own vocabulary lists. Tango uses the popular kvtml format for its data. (Jason - Fri, 24 Mar 2006)
• MemoryPlanter is a spaced repetition web-application which is good for learning vocabulary. (Brian Kay - Thu, 12 Jan 2006)
• kanjiPod, Python software to compile Kanji study dictionaries for the iPod "Notes" function. Also includes pre-compiled dictionaries. (Bryn Davies - Thu, 12 Jan 2006)
• Updated Mike Johnson's Japanese SIP (soft input panel) & EDICT dictionary for PPC and WinCE, as wall as Win2k/WinXP port. Licence: GPL. (aleXANder - Sat, 19 Nov 2005)
• [LINK] A Japanese dictionary midlet based on EDICT. Requires a Siemens phone with Chinese rom. (I.R.on - Sun, 23 Oct 2005)
• [LINK] Creates kanji wallpapers or xml files by querying the kanji database with simple parameters. (I.R.on - Sun, 23 Oct 2005)
• [LINK] project URL for a patch to jwpce to add stroke order diagram (Benoit Cerrina - Sat, 15 Oct 2005)
• A free and open-source vocabulary flashcard program, conversion utility and editor for Windows and Linux. (David Morrissey - Sat, 4 Jun 2005)
• LightWayText is a hybrid, reliable, and powerful text editor for multilingual word processing, having lots of nice features and great stability. (Yumi - Tue, 14 Jun 2005)
• PocketPC's today plugin. It will help you learning Japanese easily on Today screen of your PocketPC. Just turn on your PocketPC and you can learn some Kanji appear immediately. It has a lunar calendar also, and Japanese datetime style. (comart - Thu, 16 Jun 2005)
• KanaQuiz is a Freeware Windows kana learning program for beginners. Learn Katakana and Hiragana, including basic, voiced and compounded kana. (BlueFire - Fri, 12 Aug 2005)
• A Firefox plugin of the popular Rikai reading assistant.
• Kotoba appears to be a flashcard program for Mac OSX.
• Kanji Crammer is a flash card/slide show program for learning japanese kanji. It runs on the Macintosh with Jaguar(10.2) or better. It even comes with the source code.
• Golly's Vocab Tutor is Windows software to create dynamic multi-user quizzes. Very flexible. Uses Text-To-Speech.
• Daniel Kim's JpDic is a free .NET Japanese/English Dictionary program based on EDICT (Windows XP/2000). Source is also available for download.
• Alexander Vollschwitz's Babbletower project has developed Java software suitable for dictionary use on PDAs. Can run on a number of platforms.
• JLookUp JLookUp is a Japanese-English dictionary program (Windows); it has a built-in kana IME, allows multiple dictionaries, and has tons of encoding support.
• Michael Yokoyama's Japanese Content for Palm Powered Devices contains reviews of Japanese and Japanese-oriented software for the Palm Pilot PDA. Has links to his own KanjiKun and Katahira packages.
• CJEDictionary is a .NET application which provides a Chinese/Japanese/English service (based on CEDICT and EDICT.)
• For WWW users without an IME, Kana Chameleon converts romaji to kana, which can them be cut and pasted.
• We seem to be getting into mobile phone flashcard systems. LanguageBug is one such. Like FlashKana below, it also needs Java-capable mobile phones.
• Another kana drill program, Frank Sundgaard's FlashKana runs on Java-capable mobile phones.
• Erwan Loisant's very nice Mozilla Firebird plugin that does dictionary lookups on WWW pages. (I'm watching this particular application environment closely, as I think it has great potential.)
• KanjiSharp is a .NET-based vocabulary/flashcard system.
• Patrick Shyu's JE Eyes package is for .NET environments. Looks very nice.
• Jardic Pro is a shareware dictionary program suitable for Japanese/Russian dictionary files such as JR-EDICT. Can also use EDICT, KANJIDIC, ENAMDICT and EIJIRO dictionaries.
• Albert Huang's DLTOOL enables dictionary lookup via the clipboard on Windows systems. Works in Japanese & Chinese.
• Another Kanji flashcard system, this one by Peter Salvi. Uses Tcl/Tk.
• The Pacific Software Publishing company has a Japanese-Online language and culture resource page.
• Another new Zaurus dictionary application is WaJEi by Richard Dunham. (It used to be called "Sagasu".)
• A Zaurus dictionary application called bedic can handle a version of EDICT. Christian Wittern has a suitable vertion of EDICT for bedic here.
• Lars Grunewaldt has developed PADict, a Palm OS dictionary program which uses the EDICT file.
• Declan Software has Windows software for studying Japanese reading and writing: ReadWrite Hiragana, ReadWrite Katakana and ReadWrite Kanji. They include a number exercises to assess progress & include animated stroke orders for all kanji and kana.
• Some free Japanese vocabulary, kana and kanji drill programs for Mac OS 10.0 are available from Single Brain Cell. (Follow the Modern link.)
• A good Palm OS dictionary package is Dokusha.
• Yet another flashcard program, JBDrill is a simple Tcl/Tk system I wrote a while ago, and have finally released. Runs on Linux, Windows and Macs.
• Benjamin Peterson's jBrowse is a browser plugin that provides a dictionary service (using EDICT), furigana addition, etc. Needs IE5.5 or higher,and either Windows 2000 or XP, or Japanese versions of Windows 95 or 98.
• KanjiQuick is a Windows kanji dictionary package using Spahn and Hadamitzky's dictionaries. Shareware with a demo version. There is a freeware version which can use EDICT too. It has a speech synthesis module which seems interesting.
• Duane May has a project called KanjiXML which is based on an XMLed version of KANJIDIC for which he is developing Java libraries.
• A new Windows dictionary shareware program is Justin Hunt's Aroha which looks very promising. (Now on the Monash ftp site.)
• A new dictionary package for MacOS X is OriDict (Oriental Dictionary), which uses EDICT format files, and can drive EDICT, CEDICT, etc.
• A new kanji reading/writing education program is LexiKAN. It goes beyond many other such programs by providing feedback on stroke order and placement. Commercial with a downloadable demo version.
• Hiragana Navi converts kanji to kana on WWW pages. It seems to need IE and Japanese Windows.
• Michael Koch's JGloss is a Java package that analyzes Japanese text and appends the readings and meanings of kanji jukugo.
• Armin Rump has ported EDICT to the PDIC format used in the Zaurus PDA. Armin also has a wide range of other dictionaries available for the Zaurus.
• Ivan Kanis has written a Kanji lookup program for the Palm Pilot called PocketKanji.
• J_Inflect is Collin McCulley's verb & adjective inflection program.
• For the Palm Pilot there's a very nice Japanese input method called ATOK for Palm.
• A very interesting Linux/gtk dictionary package based on xjdic is Botond Botyanszki's gjiten.
• Kanjipad is a Japanese handwriting program for Unix with the GTK+ library. Written by Owen Taylor and based on Todd Rudick and Robert Wells' previous programs.
• New from Glen Rosenthal of JWPce fame is his next production, a Flashcard package called JFC.
• Alex Schonfeld's JQuickTrans claims to be an "Integrated dictionary, simple translation and study system which can link to your windows clipboard. (Win9x/NT)" (I'm not sure I like the "Trans" in the title, as it's really a dictionary/vocab system.)
• Philip Brown's Jdrill and Kdrill programs, for Java and Unix/X11 environments respectively, support kanji drill practice.
• A very nice Kanji Flashcard system using Java applets, written by Nobuko Chikamatsu and Steve Ryner at DePaul University.
• For the Palm Pilot there is the interesting KDIC application by Hiroshi Kawashima. His page has vanished, but I have it on my ftp site here.
• an interesting new development is the latest in freeware word-processors for Windows; Glenn Rosenthal's JWPce. Despite its title, it runs on Win95/98/NT as well as WindowsCE for a growin number of hand-helds. It is not modified version of JWP, but more a complete redevelopment in C++. JWPce is available from the Monash ftp site, as well as Glenn's page.
• Ka-Ping Yee's excellent Shodouka system was the first WWW mediator system to allow non-Japanese-capable browsers to display Japanese Web pages. You can also try the new server we now have installed at Monash for reading Japanese WWW pages using a browser without Japanese fonts. Also, another server, written by Dan B., has just come available.
• for users of my favourite operating system, Linux, there is the excellent, but now a little dated, Linux and Nihongo page produced by Craig Oda.
• the Basis Technology company specializes in localization/internationalization, and have produced the excellent RJ Japanese text reader.
• The Lava Software Home Page. Lava Software, which hails from Australia, produces the Japanese WordMage (previously WordMaster) package. WordMage offers nine highly integrated applications including a multilingual wordprocessor, a HTML web page editor/viewer, various study systems with authoring abilities (interactive storybooks, auto-revision flashcards, the `Kanji Safari' multiplayer game and reading, aural and visual comprehension exercises), a powerful Kanji reference dictionary, a grammar library builder and a text translation aid. Does not require any Japanese O/S software to run. MacOS, Windows and Linux platforms supported.
• Staying with Macs, here is the page of Dan Crevier's new Unidict dictionary package. This is one of a growing set of packages which add value to the EDICT/KANJIDIC files. (Needs JLK, etc.)
• The Lernout & Hauspie company, which bought out Neocor, and has since been bought by Scansoft, produced some excellent software, including the Power Translator English-Japanese translation system which seemed to be based on the earlier "Tsunami/Typhoon" systems. They also had the Kanjiscan Japanese OCR system. Sadly the links for all these products have ceased working, and I have heard that Scansoft treated all the Neocor and L&H language products as legacy and withdrew support.
• Also aiding translation is the Universal Translator Deluxe from the LanguageForce company. Note that for Japanese, it warns that the product "does not have grammar and sentence structure support. This means that it can only translate word for word or phrase by phrase."
• The NJSTAR Japanese Wordprocessor for DOS and Windows is a very popular shareware product. It is part of a family of Chinese and Japanese software developed by HongBo Ni. (It seems like only yesterday that I received some email from HongBo asking me to try the alpha version...)
• Free Light Software is a French company which specializes in Asian and oriental language software, and produces the Free Light Japanese which is available as a demo on the Monash ftp archive.
• Robert Wells has developed an interesting package for the Pilot which combines dictionary searching and kanji recognition. He has a page describing it, with down-load information.
• for the Psion palmtop, Otfried Cheong (ne' Schwarzkopf) has written the Dic application, which handles multiple languages and scripts. Uses EDICT for Japanese.
• TkJdic is a Tcl/Tk package which accesses the KANJIDIC and EDICT files, and is based on my xjdic program. (Unix/X11, of course.) The original WWW site is gone, but you can get the package here

• Soseki Project a resource for those who would like to read Natsume Soseki's works in their original Japanese form. (Ian Sutherland - Tue, 20 May 2014)
• Kanji Haitani's Man'yoshu Best 100 page presents one hundred poems from this classical anthology. For each poem, he has provided brief explanations in both English and Japanese, including "literal translations" into both modern Japanese and English. (Jim - Mon, 5 Feb 2007)
• The Roomazi BUKKU site has romanized Japanese novels and other literature. (Ken - Sun, 14 May 2006)
• CCC Books is devoted to the work of Japanese poet Tamura Ryuichi, translated into English by Samuel Grolmes and Tsumura Yumiko. (jgreely - Wed, 15 Feb 2006) Living in postwar Japan. Hans Brinckmann's acclaimed autobiography 'The Magatama Doodle'. (Michael Rogge - Sun, 12 Jun 2005) -->
• The Genji Daigaku site has a lot of information about the Genji Monogatari. (Much of it is in the Japanese pages.)
• Tetsuya Ito has compiled an excellent resource page on the Tale of Genji. Particularly worth visiting is a collection of prints and music about the work.
• The University of Sheffield in the UK has an fascinating Waka website on which they are compiling 2001 poems. (They are transcribed in rather gruesome romaji as well as kanji/kana.)
• the huge Blue Sky collection of free digital books.
• Mitsuharu Matsuoka's Japan, my Japan! page. It has a good set of links for Japanese literature.
• the Japanese Text Initiative of the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center and the University of Pittsburgh East Asian Library. It contains a large number of important texts, including the Hyakunin Isshu (100 Poems by 100 Poets), the Ise Monogatari, an edition of the Kokinshu, the Manyoushu, Basho, etc. It now also has an interactive search facility. A very significant resource
• an interesting link to the World of Kenji Miyazawa, which contains a lot of information about that poet and story-teller.
• Michael Watson teaches literature at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo/Yokohama, and has some interesting links from his page.

Information about on-line WWW-server-based dictionaries is progressively being added to my Online Japanese Dictionaries page. Please refer there for server information.

• In parallel with the HanDeDict project (below), Gabor Ugray has now compiled and released an open-source Chinese-Hungarian dictionary. The first release has about 11,000 headwords. (Gabor Ugray - 21 May 2017)
• Jardic Online is a dictionary site that performs word lookup in Japanese-Russian, Japanese-English and Chinese-Russian dictionaries. It also performs sentence lookups in files with parallel Japanese-Russian-English texts (Tatoeba, Chekhov works and others). The site performs Japanese text parsing to translate words from Japanese sentences. (Vitaly Zagrebelny - Mon, 17 Oct 2016)
• NihongoDera is a Japanese dictionary site that has advanced search options for words, kanji, and example Japanese sentences. The site also includes several useful tools for parsing Japanese text. (Based on EDICT, Kanjidic and the Tatoeba sentences.) (Zach Leigh - Sun, 22 May 2016)
• An interesting Japanese Compound Verb Lexicon covering 2,700 verbs. You can search by both components. Japanese site. (Jim - Wed, 17 Feb 2016)
• A new HanDeDict (Chinese-German dictionary) site has been established to replace the previous one which was shut down last year. (Gabor Ugray - Fri, 29 Jan 2016)
• A new online tools page (see Resources below) has an interesting and and extensive Japanese names dictionary. (Syth Choi - Sat, 18 Apr 2015)
• Jim Breen's page of Yojijukugo, which is a monster list of over 5,800 4-kanji compounds categorized by their source. (It's really for dictionary maintenance, but I thought I'd make it public here.) (Jim - Thu, 11 Sep 2014)
• Japan in Hand, a stylish and featureful interface for searching JMdict data. (Brian DuSell - Sun, 4 May 2014)
• Jack Halpern has just announced a revised edition of the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary. The update includes all the recent additions to the jouyou and jinmeiyou kanji, taking it to over 3,000 characters. A great change has been the use of kana instead of romaji in all the examples. (Jim - Fri, 30 Aug 2013)
• Interesting collection of English-Japanese glossaries, covering a variety of topics. (Jonathan Sayles - Thu, 29 Nov 2012)
• A Kanji dictionary with rather nice animations. Not much other information. Coupled with a limited English-Japanese dictionary. (John Lee - Tue, 21 Feb 2012)
• Free online English to Japanese dictionary.(Clearly still in its early days.) (John Lee - Tue, 8 Nov 2011)
• Denshi-Jisho.com is an online store for Japanese electronic dictionaries. (A bit fussy and busy for my taste, and the usual patches of Engrish. Jim) (Denshi-Jisho.com - Fri, 19 Nov 2010)
• Abel Camarena's Hispadic Japanese-Spanish dictionary project. Based on EDICT and under the Creative Commons licence. (Jim - Wed, 7 Jul 2010)
• Websaru Japanese Dictionary is a free online Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary with language aid tools like online translation. (Uses EDICT and GENE95) (Jason - Sat, 10 Apr 2010)
• Izakayasanpo, the English guide to Tokyo's traditional Izakaya, as an interesting Japanese-English Izakaya dictionary. (Izakayasanpo - Wed, 24 Mar 2010)
• Japanese-German dictionary based on Wadoku with optimized word list and additional features: input of romanji/kana, translation of whole sentance and use of common words for better readability (Chris - Wed, 20 Jan 2010)
• Babylon's Japanese Dictionary and Translation Software can be downloaded for free (sadly only for a short trial). Very nice on-screen popup translations and searches. (Take care installing as it defaults to setting itself as your home page, search engine choice, etc. etc.) (Jim - Mon, 16 Mar 2009)
• Wa-Qué Wakaru is a Japanese<->French online dictionary, from Québec, Canada. It also contains Enamdict, partly translated to French. (Alain - Mon, 1 Dec 2008)
• The Quicktionary 2 Kanji Reader is a handheld OCR/dictionary combination. Uses 3 smallish Sanseido dictionaries. Very impressive, but a little expensive. (Jim - Mon, 22 Sep 2008)
• The CJKdict page is a Chinese-Japanese-Korean dictionary page that allows searches for characters/words in any of the three languages and displays the results for the three languages at the same time. Uses EDICT, CEDICT and Hanjadic. (Eugene Kang - Fri, 23 Nov 2007)
• Japanese electronic dictionaries by Seiko, Sharp, Casio and Canon, at low prices, free shipping and including free warranty service, exported by beNippon, direct from Japan. Offers of 3% discount for anybody (developers, translators, etc.) working on Free(dom) softwares or GPLed projects. (beNippon - Mon, 16 Apr 2007)
• Japanese Web Dictionaries and Study Links, etc. (John Paul Loucky - Wed, 28 Feb 2007)
• Japanese electronic dictionaries online at GoodsFromJapan.com. For Canon, Casio, Sharp, and Seiko Japanese-English, Japanese-Chinese, Japanese-Korean, Japanese-French and many more types of electronic dictionary. (Sanborn Brown - Wed, 7 Feb 2007)
• JEDict is a highly regarded Mac dictionary package, supporting EDICT, Eijiro, etc. (Jim - Tue, 18 Jul 2006)
• Denshi Jisho is a Japanese dictionary with word, kanji and sentence databases, drawn from the WWWJDIC project, with the goal of providing an easy-to-use interface and powerful search features. (Kim Ahlstr?m - Mon, 13 Feb 2006)
• [LINK] An online kanji dictionary that looks like more a traditional paper dictionary. Each compound has clickable kanji that link to other kanji entries. Includes radical and kanji index. (Stephen Ryner Jr. - Tue, 25 Oct 2005)
• Peter Rivard has a Japanese language tools page with complete versions of most recent (June `05) Edict (searchable by compound, reading, and English), Enamdic (searchable by compound and reading), and Kanjidic (searchable by kanji, on and kun readings, and SKIP code) files formatted in the common PDIC format (.dic) to run on WDIC on the Palm PDA and on various programs for desktop and Pocket PC platforms. Also resources to make Eijiro run better on WDIC and on the desktop PC. (Peter Rivard - Mon, 4 Jul 2005)
• The Papillon Project aims at creating a multilingual lexical database. An interesting project, with a lot of data already.
• Francisco Gutierrez has prepared a Spanish kanji dictionary (Kanji Al Completo) which can be downloaded in PDF form from his Nippein site. Follow the link marked "Kanjis/KAC". There is also a set of kanji flashcards based on the book.
• Another WWW server which does popups of translations is Alex Schonfeld's POPjisyo portal. (The parsing of Japanese is a little shaky, I see.)
• Tom Gally wrote an interesting review of the new Grand Concise Japanese-English Dictionary (Sanseido), and then a year or so later wrote an even more interesting article about his time working on the 5th edition Kenkyusha New Japanese English Dictionary.
• A major step towards dictionary files covering Japanese and languages and projects other than English is Jean-Marc Desperrier's Dictionnaire français-japonais (Japanese-French Dictionary). This is a project to create French versions of the major EDICT entries. It has about 15,000 entries at present.
• Juan Cardona's Japanese-English/Spanish files of forestry terms. They can be downloaded from here.
• Ulrich Apel has compiled a huge Japanese-German dictionary. (WaDokuJT) It has downloadable (Win, Mac) and WWW versions.
• You can also download WaDokuJT versions suitable for JWPce from Hans-Joerg Bibiko's site. Hans-Joerg also has searchable versions of WaDokuJT and his kanji lexicon, the latter based on his German translation of KANJIDIC.
• Wladimir Carvalho has tables of the Jouyou Kanji annotated in Portuguese (stroke order and alphabetical order) (Seems to cause problems with Netscape.)
• One of the most exciting pages I have seen in years is Todd Rudick's Rikai mediator, which uses active HTML to display a translation of Japanese words when the mouse pointer is placed on them. Very impressive (uses the EDICT, etc. files.)
• A very interesting set of pages is Charles Eicher's Japanese Dictionaries set. He has useful descriptions and examples from the main Japanese dictionaries. (This page in now a bit dated, and in fact has vanished. The link points at an archived copy.) (Click on the top button when you get the first page.)
• a new page of considerable interest is that of Jack Halpern's Kanji Dictionary Publishing Society (KDPS). This covers Jack's lexicographical work, and has links for his New Japanese-English Character Dictionary, and the latest book, his The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary.
• A WWW edition of the KANJIDIC file, prepared by Lambert Schomaker. It has everything as in-line graphics, however no search facility; you select by JIS code.
• Chuck Muller's comprehensive WWW-based Dictionary-Database of CJK Characters and Compounds. Chuck has a wealth of information about kanji, with indexes on a number of keys.
• Although it really deals with Chinese matters, Rick Harbaugh's superb WWW Chinese Character Genealogy dictionary must be mentioned as an excellent source of material.
• A good jumping point for Chinese and Japanese online dictionaries is Marjorie Chan's wordlist and glossaries page at Ohio State.
• Francis Bond's lingdic Japanese-English dictionary file of linguistics terms. It can be downloaded from here.
• For manga fans, Iain Sinclair's Manga Glossary is essential reading.
• not Japanese at all, but well worth a mention is the CEDICT (Chinese-English Dictionary) Project, started years ago by Paul Denisowski. The file is now maintained by Erik Peterson and others, and has over 34,000 entries. CEDICT was inspired by the EDICT project. An interesting WWW driver for the CEDICT file is Erik's WordDict available on his Mandarin Tools page. There is also Richard Warmington's Chinese-English Lookup program for (Big5) Windows.
• for an amusing list of gairaigo which don't quite match their English equivalents or originals, try Keiichiro Sugimoto's Janglish list.
• a useful source of words is Michel Porcher's lists of botanical names, which include Japanese plant names

• Norio Ota's list of Idiomatic Expressions is very useful (new URL). (Jim - Thu, 18 Nov 2021)
• jpdb.io is a Japanese dictionary with an integrated spaced repetition system for vocabulary and kanji ; richly interlinked, can deconjugate verbs and parse sentences, has custom kanji stroke order diagrams and thousands of prebuilt vocabulary decks from anime, visual novels and Japanese dramas. (Uses JMdict, etc.) (koute - Tue, 02 Feb 2021)
• With Nihongo Master in just 5 minutes students can start learning how to read, write and speak Japanese with lessons that cover the basics to the advanced. (Nomi - Thu, 19 Nov 2020)
• A page I have built of kanji identified by their ON-reading phonetic components. The kanji phonetic components used are those described in the book The Kanji Code by Natalie Hamilton, and in particular are based in her list of components, which she kindly supplied. (Jim - 10 August 2019)
• the Optilingo site has some short articles on learning Japanese. (To be frank I find them a bit light-weight and irritating, but YMMV.) (Jim - 9 August 2019)
• Several videos were made in 1985 based on the Japanese For Busy People books. The first 4 are available on YouTube: Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4. (Very relevant, and the hair styles are interesting.) Thanks to Neculai Amalinei for pointing these out.
  Ben Bullock later tracked down a playlist of links to a later set of JBP videos, containing the Introduction and 10 lessons. Well done! (Jim - 28 May and 7 June 2019)
• L-Lingo is (yet another) site with on-line language courses. It offers some initial freebies. (Jim - Tues, 8 May 2018)
• Lingostan arranges language instruction via tutors, and now has Japanese tutors available. (Jim - Tues, 8 May 2018)
• Jack Yamashita's The True Japan site has some interesting guides, including The Best Way to Learn Japanese and How to Pass the JLPT N2 on Your First Try. (Jim - Wed, 14 Feb 2018)
• Another WWW-based Japanese study resource is the curiously-named JapaneseMeow. (Jim - Thu, 12 Oct 2017)
• For Germans who want to start learning Japanese, visit Japanisch Lernen Online. (Sebastian - Mon, 11 Sep 2017)
• Glossika's Japanese Alphabet Game aims to help you get started with your Japanese language learning journey by giving you the ability to read Hiragana and Katakana in as little as just a few hours. (Of course, Japanese doesn't actually have an alphabet, but they persist with that game name. Jim.) (Michael Lan - Tue, 18 Jul 2017)
• Kanshudo is (yet) another Japanese learning site. Haven't checked it out, but it's had some recommendations and seems well constructed. (Jim - Sun, 04 Jun 2017)
• Interesting blog called 5 Tips to Help You Learn Japanese by Steve Kaufmann. (Jim - Thu, 01 Jun 2017)
• Learn Japanese Online at your own pace through Skype with experienced native tutors. (Sarah Thomas - Wed, 15 Mar 2017)
• The former Kanji Networks site has closed. A document containing approximately 6000 of the etymological interpretations of Han/Chinese characters formerly presented on the site can be downloaded here. (Lawrence J. Howell - Wed, 31 May 2006, updated 25 Aug 2016)
• JPDrills is a free online Japanese practice site for active Japanese learners. (Ben Cann - Wed, 23 Mar 2016)
• A great collection of information about kuzushiji, i.e. cursive characters in Japanese. (Jim - Tue, 01 Mar 2016)
• An interesting and well-written Grammar guide for beginners and upwards. (Ross - Tue, 05 Jan 2016)
• Kanji Damage is a rather quirky site full of all sort of tricks for learning kanji. (Comment from Jim: I was a bit skeptical when I first saw it, but I think it's better than a lot of Japanese learning sites. (Jim - Sat, 20 June 2015)
• Practice Reading Japanese - 7 quizzes and 1330 Japanese phrase questions and an easy way to learn Japanese grammar and vocabulary without a textbook. (Comment from Jim: quite a nice site.) (engless - Sat, 16 May 2015)
• Dokugakusha is a set of Android tools for students of Japanese. (Seruguio Supeinjin - Mon, 16 Mar 2015)
• Kana Helper is a web-based tool to help learn the two Japanese scripts - hiragana and katakana. (Jeff Kayser - Thu, 29 Jan 2015)
• FluentU claims to be a site for learning Japanese with real-world videos like music videos, movie trailers, news, and inspiring talks. (Alan Park - Thu, 25 Sep 2014)
• A new Youtube-based Japanese Language Learning Series. The goal is to teach viewers Japanese in short video lessons that range from 3-6 minutes each. (Marco - Fri, 20 Jun 2014)
• A nice furigana generator server (code can be downloaded.) (Jim - Thu, 19 Jun 2014)
• A large collection of kanji posters with meanings and readings. These can be downloaded and printed. The Tcl code is also available via the "Code" tag. (Jim - Thu, 19 Jun 2014)
• When I was living in Japan in 2000/2001 I liked Hitomi Hirayama's Pera Pera Penguin instructional column in the (then) English edition of the Yomiuri Shinbun. The original link to them has gone, but the PDF versions can still be downloaded starting here and ending here. (You need to adjust the number in the URL to get the others.) I have put the set of columns with individual links on another server, which might be easier to access. (Jim (updated) - Sun, 4 May 2014)
• Kanji Duel is a vocabulary trainer for advanced learners in which players have to type the readings of Japanese words containing kanji quickly, to fend them off and not get overwhelmed by their ceaseless onslaught. (I found it quite a lot of fun - Jim) (Kay Hermann - Wed, 16 Apr 2014)
• JLearn.net is a nice-looking portal that combines the JMdict, Kanjidic, Tanaka Corpus, JLPT vocab lists, etc. in an attractive package. (Jim - Wed, 9 Apr 2014)
• The Kanji alive site, which started out at the University of Chicago, is a searchable, interactive web-based tool to help students learn to read and write kanji. It has recently had a complete rewrite. When I first listed it I said "It looks terrific and reflects the large amount of work that has gone into it." Good to see it is still being enhanced. (Jim - 7 Nov 2013)
• Interesting Audio Flashcard site with 22 hours of FREE Japanese audio lessons, including 6,000 questions spoken in English followed by Japanese answers spoken by a native Japanese speaker. Complete with a transcript and clear explanations of Japanese grammar. All downloads are FREE. (Roger Lake - Wed, 1 May 2013)
• The Pimsleur Approach Japanese aims teach you to learn Japanese conversationally with s\a simple-to-use program. Also provides many unique Japanese resources and articles on its blog. (Leslie - Fri, 15 Feb 2013)
• Go Overseas is hub of study abroad in Japan information including programs, financial tips, cultural how-to's, and more. (Megan Lee - Tue, 29 Jan 2013)
• Nihongo Master is another online Japanese learning site. States it has short lesson plans to allow for flexibility and a "fun achievement based" reward system. Includes a Jmdict/KANJIDIC-based online dictionary. (Taylor - Tue, 13 Nov 2012)
• TenguGo teaches Kanji and Kana with a free website (Plus Android and iOS apps). Includes integrated lessons, quizzes, audio and stroke diagrams. (Jeremie - Mon, 1 Oct 2012)
• Japanese Lessons is a site with a set of basic lesson sin Japanese - writing, grammar, etc. (Yong Lee - Thu, 6 Sep 2012)
• RomajiDesu English Japanese Dictionary is a dictionary site that incorporates databases such as JMdict, Kanjidic and KanjiVG. Quite effective and simple. (Far too much use of romaji for my liking - Jim) (haibuihoang - Sat, 18 Aug 2012)
• A curated list of 100 best resources to learn Japanese. (Philip Seyfi - Wed, 1 Aug 2012)
• Learn Japanese Through Anime claims to teach Japanese through the use of anime! There are some free video lessons, blog posts, etc., but it seems to charge for most lessons. (Ken Cannon - Sat, 28 Jul 2012) converts from Japanese (hiragana/katakana/kanji) to Romaji with English definition (which is basically taken from edict)(If you're learning Japanese, get away from romaji as fast as you can - Jim) (haibuihoang - Sun, 22 Apr 2012)
• Japanese-Italian quizzes with hundreds of questions on nouns, verbs, adjectives and a phrase quiz for learning to read. (Engless - Wed, 11 Apr 2012)
• Lots of free Kanji Wallpaper created with the GIMP. (Neko - Fri, 30 Mar 2012)
• Ikigomu is a new web application for studying Kanji. It uses data mining techniques to present Japanese Kanji in context personalized to the user's skill level. It can also suggest the best Kanji for a user to learn next. (Ikigomu Language Services - Tue, 27 Mar 2012)
• The Imabi site states it has many free in-depth lessons into Japanese. (Seth Coonrod - Sat, 17 Mar 2012)
• Total Kanji Recall is a daily video and test dedicated to mastering Kanji. (Carol - Wed, 14 Mar 2012)
• Benri Nihongo is a Hong Kong-based Japanese Language program for non-native speakers of Japanese. All courses are tutored by an official Japanese interpreter (whatever that means). (Felix Tang - Sun, 11 Mar 2012)
• Skype-based Online Japanese Lessons lets you study when and where you want. (Reich - Thu, 8 Mar 2012)
• StackExchange is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. (Looks quite good.) (Jim - Thu, 9 Feb 2012)
• Language Software Reviews has comparisons of various language packages including reviews, ratings, etc. Japanese is included. (Jim - Tue, 24 Jan 2012)
• A set of Japanese Lessons written by a college student who is majoring in Japanese using the textbooks Genki Japan and Japanese Demystified as her sources. (John Lee - Thu, 12 Jan 2012)
• Skype-based Online Japanese Lessons. (Reich Ramirez - Thu, 27 Oct 2011)
• Swikee is a student-teacher English language matching site Swikee aims to help Japanese students find great English teachers and language classes. Teachers post their profiles on Swikee to find more students and private lessons in Japan. (Tim - Mon, 5 Sep 2011)
• KanaBattle is a free educational resource for Katakana, Hiragana, and Romaji. The latest version also supports Joyo Kanji. Available for iPhone/iPod Touch. (Do people really need something like that for Romaji?) (Difint - Tue, 26 Jul 2011)
• The NihongoUp people offer a free online course in hiragana & katakana (14-day only). (Philip Seyfi - Sun, 17 Jul 2011)
• Kaplan Japan offers Japanese people the chance to study languages abroad. This site is in Japanese. (Ed - Fri, 24 Jun 2011)
• Japanese TV and movies' transcripts is a curious site with kana transcripts of several Japanese TV dramas and movies. (Aya Edlin - Mon, 20 Jun 2011)
• Another online learning site is Nihongo-Pro. It says it has experienced Japanese teachers, and the chance to see and talk to your teacher live while you learn Japanese. (Terry - Tue, 31 May 2011)
• Japanese cheat sheets & posters in bundles for beginners and intermediate learners of Japanese. (Look nice, but a tad expensive..) (Philip Seyfi - Sat, 14 May 2011)
• Learn Japanese Adventure - Interesting site with personal experiences on learning Japanese. Has some free online lessons on Japanese words, phrases and vocabulary. (Koh Kia Leng - Mon, 9 May 2011)
• Rocket Languages are offering a free 6-day Japanese course to find out whether Rocket Languages is for you. (Henry Dunne - Mon, 11 Apr 2011)
• A very nice set of which can be downloaded and printed. (Jim (per Douglas Perkins) - Fri, 1 Apr 2011)
• RepKanji uses a set of videos to aid learning kanji through repetition. Based on Heisig. (Carol - updated April 14, 2020)
• Kanji Puzzle is a fun way of putting your kanji reading skills to use, refreshing your memory of seldom used characters as well as introducing you to some new ones. The idea behind the game is to visually associate characters sharing common readings which might help with understanding homonyms and wordplay. (Kay Hermann - Tue, 16 Nov 2010)
• Learn Japanese is an online Japanese learning site. Provides "descriptive and informative techniques while learning Japanese in an extensive way" (whatever that means.) (brad - Fri, 8 Oct 2010)
• Michael Engel's flashcard files set up for use with the Mnemosyne vocabulary trainer. Joyokanji, JLPT levels, etc. (Jim - Sun, 15 Aug 2010)
• Learning Chocolate has some rather clunky vocabulary games for students. (wilson - Thu, 12 Aug 2010)
• Melbourne's Language Champs offers language courses in Japanese, etc. (Adam - Tue, 27 Jul 2010)
• Con Kolivas' file of Jouyou Kanji information in frequency order. (Jim - Sun, 20 Jun 2010)
• TangoNET is an online e-learning system for Japanese vocabulary which generates exercises using example sentences of the words being studied. (Greg Hazelbeck - Fri, 11 Jun 2010)
• The Japan Foundation's Nihongo eな page has masses of useful links and resources for Japanese study. (Jim - Fri, 4 Jun 2010)
• Kanji for Fun! on the iPad is a game for learning the stroke order and English meanings of nearly 2000 Kanji. It uses a matching tile approach with a new twist and has a reference section were you can practice writing Kanji on the screen with your finger. (B Leckett - Thu, 27 May 2010)
• romaji.co.uk has browser-based JavaScript revision resources. (Unfortunately only in romaji.) (Luke Browne - Thu, 6 May 2010)
• Japanese hiragana Free Japanese hiragana chart and flashcards. (Nick Kemp - Sun, 11 Apr 2010)
• JLPT - JLPT video tutorials and practice tests (Nicholas Kemp - Tue, 23 Mar 2010)
• Paul Dixon has compiled a JLPT Level 2 Kanji Dictionary, which is available for download and printing. (Jim - Sun, 25 Feb 2010)
• Learn Japanese Online is a site plugging various video and audio lesson packages. (Nick - Sun, 7 Feb 2010)
• Japanese Language now is a collection of articles geared toward the beginning Japanese language learner. The page also reviews and links to a popular Japanese language software program, Rocket Japanese. (asianinterests (my Twitter name) - Wed, 3 Feb 2010)
• Learn Japanese Online with video and audio lessons. (Nick and Kaoru - Thu, 21 Jan 2010)
• Speak Japanese teaches Japanese with intermediate level screen capture video lessons. (Nick - Sat, 16 Jan 2010)
• Paul Dixon's kanji Stroke Animation site (needs Flash). 1,472 animations. Very impressive. (Jim - Fri, 15 Jan 2010)
• A Japanese Review: a site for beginners or people curious about the Japanese language. (Steve - Sun, 3 Jan 2010)
• the Mieko Japanese Language School offers Skype-based private Japanese online lessons. Interesting approach. (Mieko - Fri, 13 Nov 2009)
• Desktop, mobile, online & print Japanese learning resources list for Japanese language students. (Philip Seyfi - Wed, 04 Nov 2009)
• Concise Courses is a London based company offering courses in Japanese language and culture. Courses are held at King's College. (Jim - Sat, 17 Oct 2009)
• The Text-to-Speech site has a Japanese option. The rendering of Japanese text is quite good. (Jim - Mon, 12 Oct 2009)
• Hejsan! Nihongo, a free Flash game for rehearsing the conjugation of Japanese verbs and adjectives., from Lund University, Sweden. (Axel Svahn - Sat, 10 Oct 2009)
• Japanese-Flashcards is a Japanese learning site with word and sentence flashcards, annotated texts and text analyzer. (Oliver Antosch - Thu, 8 Oct 2009)
• Smart FM is a general vocab. drill site, and has quizzes with spoken examples in Japanese. (Pedro - Thu, 10 Sep 2009)
• Excellent eLearning Resources at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Includes heaps of audio clips of dialgues and vocab. (Jim - Sat, 5 Sep 2009)
• Kanji Journey is an online course in the 1945 Jouyou Kanji with 2 new lessons uploaded daily. (Carol - Tue, 11 Aug 2009)
• learn-hiragana-katakana.com offers free Japanese language learning games to learn hiragana, katakana, kanji, numbers, etc. Games are made in flash to be interactive and interesting. (martin - Wed, 10 Jun 2009)
• My Language Partner - Find a Japanese language exchange partner, or drill vocabulary and grammar with quizzes. (Anna Mar - Sat, 9 May 2009)
• Bonajo is an interactive e-learning site using online quiz and word game software for Japanese language study. Includes hundreds of kanji and thousands of kanji compounds. Kanji and compounds are learned cumulatively. (Tim Chambers - Tue, 31 Mar 2009)
• Kanjihacks.com is a site for students of Japanese share mnemonics for memorizing kanji. Students can post their own "hacks" or learn from those that others have posted. (Lauren Shindo - Fri, 20 Mar 2009)
• Online Japanese verb conjugator. (Romaji only) Includes a list of Japanese verbs and example sentences. (Pity about the romaji. Also it calls the -te form "gerund".) (Webbo - Tue, 10 Mar 2009)
• DailyNihongo.net is a compilation of tools for Japanese learners, including access to a searchable collection of Japanese texts, a dictionary, and a "smart" vocabulary flashcard system. (mgbelisle - Mon, 2 Feb 2009)
• Teacher-in-Japan is a teacher/student matching website for private lessons in Japan (Anthony Teixeira - Thu, 22 Jan 2009)
• Small English School in Chiba Japan with lots of nice pictures of Japanese children at play. (Chiharu Mori - Thu, 22 Jan 2009)
• Kanji Tester - a tool for studying JLPT levels 3 and 4 which generates randomised multiple-choice tests. (Lars Yencken - Tue, 2 Dec 2008)
• Fairly simple quiz system for kanji, hiragana, simple Japanese phrases, etc. (engless - Tue, 4 Nov 2008)
• "Ara-maa.com" describes itself as a free, fun website for anyone interested in learning some basic Japanese language. (Nick - Sat, 1 Nov 2008)
• Read The Kanji is a kanji quiz web application for testing knowledge of kanji compounds, divided by levels according to the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. (Joe Ellis - Wed, 22 Oct 2008)
• The Learn The Kana site offers a variety of Hiragana and Katakana mnemonics that new students of the Japanese language can use to help remember some of the more difficult and confusing kana. (Heron - Mon, 13 Oct 2008)
• Furiganizer is a convenient online reading aid for Japanese text that inserts Furigana and offers easy access to EDICT translations. Learns interactively which Kanji the user already knows so to omit them in the future. Results can be easily printed. (Ben - Wed, 3 Sep 2008)
• Speak Japanese Fast is "special memorization technique", which claims to enable you learn words at an amazing rate. (David McGimpsey - Sun, 3 Aug 2008)
• renshuu.org is a set of personalized resources for studying Japanese vocabulary and kanji. Study materials are available for the genki, IJ, and JFBP books, as well as the JLPT and Kanji Kentei proficiency exams. (molesquirrel - Wed, 16 Jul 2008)
• The L-Ceps Person altrainer Japanese is commercial software designed for learners with little or no previous knowledge of the Japanese language. The audio-visual program is available for Windows, Mac and Linux and contains 30 lessons. (Max Schneider - Mon, 14 Jul 2008)
• The Waiwai Nihongo site offers online Japanese lessons (a rare example of a Japanese site aimed at non-Japanese.) (Ryutaro - Thu, 12 Jun 2008)
• A desktop Kanji flashcard program written in Java. (Matt Meyer - Wed, 4 Jun 2008)
• Japanese Teaching Ideas is yet-another site offering teaching ideas for Japanese or LOTE teachers. Downloadable grammar and topic worksheets for high school students. Practical behaviour management ideas for LOTE teachers. (Inge Korver - Fri, 18 Apr 2008)
• The WordBuddy site is for learning vocabulary. Has EDICT and other dictionaries integrated. (Marc - Thu, 17 Apr 2008)
• Takanori Tomita's Japanese podcasting lessons. Free Japanese podcasting lessons to learn to speak and write kanji, hiragana and katakana. (Takanori Tomita - Thu, 13 Mar 2008)
• iKanjiTrainer is a French site which offers a dynamic approach to kanji learning. (BENLAHRECH Kamel - Mon, 3 Mar 2008)
• Japanese Project X claims it can help you "memorize all vocabulary on the JLPT in a snap." Currently for Level 4. Japanese Project X (David McGimpsey - Sun, 24 Feb 2008)
• ToMOTko is a Zaurus flashcard program to learn foreign language vocabulary. (Frederic Bergeron - Sun, 6 Jan 2008)
• Kanji Box is a multi-user flashcard system (kanji, vocab. etc.) running on the Facebook system. Interesting concept. (Jim (tip-off from Pedro) - Tue, 18 Dec 2007)
• TheJapaneseProject is a blog with regularly updated free Japanese lessons. Readers can use RSS or subscribe to the newsletter to be notified of updated lessons. (David McGimpsey - Sun, 16 Dec 2007)
• Free Japanese Lessons is a site offering a series of Japanese lessons. (Seems a bit simplistic to me, and too many advertisements - Jim) (Eric Hauck - Thu, 6 Dec 2007)
• About Japan: A Teacher's Resource is an interactive website providing practical teaching materials created collaboratively by Japan Studies specialist and K-12 teachers, a variety of documents and resources, critical essays, and numerous areas for discussion and contributing ideas about Japanese studies and how to teach about Japan. Materials are maintained and updated by Japan Society staff and scholars and teachers in the field. (Robert Fish - Fri, 26 Oct 2007)
• Kanji Explorer is a site where you can browse kanji and jukugo with English or German translations. (Werner Weingraber - Wed, 24 Oct 2007)
• Digital Dialect's Japanese page has interactive games for learning the language (Rōmaji based materials) (Craig Gibson - Tue, 25 Sep 2007)
• About Japan is a practical language and cultural resource for upper primary and secondary students. It is the result of a grant from the Queensland Program for Japanese Language Education (QPJLE). (Natalija Denis-Picton - Sat, 8 Sep 2007)
• BILINGOZ is a free Japanese language-learning website that offers 100,000 terms of targeted vocabulary in 27 categories and 6 levels of difficulty. There is a Flash-based "Study" section and a multiple-choice format "Quiz" section, each with native audio pronunciation. (Mark MacIntyre - Mon, 3 Sep 2007)
• White Rabbit Press publishes excellent kanji flashcards, as well as selling dictionaries, etc. Its WWW site also has some useful forums. (Jim - Sat, 11 Aug 2007)
• A collection of phrases for travelers. Includes over 1,400 (MP3) sound files. (Kochi - Fri, 6 Jul 2007)
• Nihongo Memo is a great resource site for teachers of Japanese. (Jim - Wed, 20 Jun 2007)
• A novel podcast system for native English speakers who are students of Japanese; intended to help increase vocabulary by mixing spoken word vocabulary lessons over instrumental DJ Mix Sets. (DJ Destructo - Mon, 28 May 2007)
• Free writing practice sheets for gakushu kanji, joyo kanji, JIS X 0208, kanken level 10-2, kanken level pre-1, JLPT level 1-4. (Zipped pdf files also containing an explanation of the contents.) (Michael Engel - Sun, 22 Apr 2007)
• Pazuru Alfabet is a freeware Windows program for learning hiragana and katakana. (Horazio - Wed, 21 Mar 2007)
• World CALL Directory is a portal that integrates and gives instant access to online dictionaries, encyclopedias, language learning links and teaching activities for over 100 major languages and thousands of language pairs. (John Paul Loucky - Wed, 28 Feb 2007)
• Jobba.net (Jobs for Japanese bilinguals) provides a job listing service and a candidate database. (Sri Seshan - Thu, 22 Feb 2007)
• Nipponster.com describes itself as "The Japan-Enthusiast's Search Engine" and claims to use powerful "social" search technology. Looks awfully like yet-another community blog system.(Review comments by JimB) (Tori Taiyo - Fri, 16 Feb 2007)
• The Japanese Choices and Perspectives pages are designed to help intermediate to advanced learners to develop interpersonal skills in the homestay and other contexts. (Pamela Carpenter - Thu, 25 Jan 2007)
• Loquela Japan Online - Open learning space and community forums on all aspects of Japanese language and culture. (Loquela - Wed, 24 Jan 2007)
• Nihongojouzu is a blog dedicated to "stuff for learning Japanese". Reviews of books and software for learning Japanese, links to Japanese study resources, study tips and tricks and interviews with people who have learnt Japanese as a second language. (Will Jasprizza - Fri, 19 Jan 2007)
• Learn-Japanese-Right-Now is yet-another site offering Japanese language lessons. New lessons added everyday. (David McGimpsey - Sun, 29 Oct 2006)
• Some useful reading material for an advanced Japanese course. Has texts with linked vocabulary lists. (Jim - Wed, 25 Oct 2006)
• Learn Japanese for Video Games is a blog dedicated to teaching Japanese to a level to be able to play an RPG in Japanese. (John - Mon, 23 Oct 2006)
• Visit Learn Amazing Japanese to learn Japanese via real-world examples from Japanese TV commercials, movies, manga, anime and more. (Eric Jackson - Sat, 30 Sep 2006)
• Online Sensei is a fun way for Japanese people to study English. It has three dififferent levels so the whole family can benefit from one membership. (Ben Duffy - Tue, 5 Sep 2006)
• A Japanese <-> English language exchange Mixi community for learners of both languages. Users post and answer questions about translation, grammar, vocabulary, and idioms. (Jay - Sun, 3 Sep 2006)
• Free Sudoku with Kanji characters (numbers, by topics or by shape), hiragana crossword puzzles (logical, puzzlegram, kana transliteration, cryptogram) and writing practice sheets. Online kanji match games by topics. (Claus-Ulrich Liepke - Thu, 10 Aug 2006)
• Kuizu is an online Japanese vocabulary quiz program, featuring flash cards, multiple choice quizzing, and matching games. Adjusts word frequency based on success rate, tracks progress and mastery. (Ginger Booth - Fri, 14 Jul 2006)
• At StudyStack, users have contributed information that can be studied online in the form of flashcards, matching, hangman, word search, and a crossword puzzle. Data can also be exported to PDAs, cell phones, or iPods. See the Japanese collection. (John Weidner - Thu, 15 Jun 2006)
• Learn Japanese claims to be a site for those who want to learn Japanese Language For Real Communication. (Takanori Tomita - Wed, 7 Jun 2006)
• The Kansuke site introduces a novel kanji lookup technique devised by Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii. Very effective for finding kanji rapidly. (Jim - Wed, 7 Jun 2006)
• JLPT Study Page - grammar, kanji, vocabulary and expression lists for JLPT Levels 2-4 as well as quizzes, transcriptions and readings from past exams. This site is updated regularly and the content is checked against the latest JLPT Test Content Specification. (Peter van der Woude - Sun, 4 Jun 2006)
• Learn Japanese Online Free Japanese lessons online. Comprehensive grammar lessons and vocabulary sheets. Kanji JLPT study sheets, Katakana and Hiragana lessons. (James Dunn - Wed, 31 May 2006)
• LearnJapanese is simple and playful tool for learning Japanese hiragana and katakana. (Uses Flash.) (Nandor Gyerman - Sat, 6 May 2006)
• Mash Satou's Online Japanese Conjugation Builder , which is a Javascript program to generate a huge set of conjugations (in romaji). (Jim - Mon, 1 May 2006)
• [LINK] Site designed to assist in increasing vocabulary and kanji recognition. User can create lists of words or kanji to study and use Applets to study them. (Chad Meyer - Fri, 7 Apr 2006)
• [J-OS] (Japan Online School) offers private lessons with native Japanese teachers using a webcam. (Koike Kei - Tue, 4 Apr 2006)
• Kanjiroushi is one of a growing number of drill, blog, etc. sites for learning Japanese. Includes an EDICT/KANJIDIC dictionary lookup. (kanjiroushi - Sun, 5 Mar 2006, edicted by Jim)
• Japanese! Japanese! is a group blog website that explores the many aspects of studying Japanese. We cover tips and tricks, study habits, grammar and vocabulary points, product reviews, useful links, and a lot more. (Nathan Yeldell - Tue, 28 Feb 2006)
• An online kanji flashcard program for testing the readings of Japanese kanji. The site allows you to customize which reading you're testing against. (Andre Prefontaine - Sun, 26 Feb 2006)
• Languageplus provides a wide range of interactive activities for Japanese teachers and learners, to use in class or at home, includes grammar, reading, writing and listening exercises. (Franck - Sat, 25 Feb 2006)
• The Yamasa Institute 's online center for Japanese studies has a great set of online courses in mulitple languages (graded by a native japanese speaker), and an online kanji dictionary with animated stroke order. The first lesson is free. (Colin - Sat, 18 Feb 2006)
• Japanese Online Institute An online school offering courses from an enthusiastic team of teachers using voice chat technology. Free software trial available. (Moses Musoke - Mon, 13 Feb 2006)
• Study Japanese includes free personal glossary drills and tests, grammar, lessons, a dictionary, and many other useful tools. (johan eliasson - Fri, 3 Feb 2006)
• Nihongo.Tigersan.com, featuring a Chihuahua from Okinawa, contains resources on learning the Japanese language and is broken down into subcategories: lessons, script, media. The "Vocabulary" section was created by Tigersan to offer a unique way of studying Japanese words. (Tigersan - Fri, 13 Jan 2006)
• Terrific server which adds furigana to the kanji on a WWW page. Here is a sample using the front page of the Asahi newspaper. (Jim - Thu, 12 Jan 2006)
• Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana study resource. Java Applets (requires Java 1.4.2 support) that make it fun and easy to study using flash cards, quizzes, and games. (Ray Owens - Thu, 12 Jan 2006)
• Japanesepod101 allows you to learn Japanese with daily podcasts direct from Tokyo. 10 minute lessons in your pocket incorporating culture and current issues. Something for all levels! (Peter Galante - Thu, 12 Jan 2006)
• Nihongo Juku is a study blog in Japanese with audio (so you can listen while you read). Articles written for intermediate and advanced students of Japanese on topics relating to learning Japanese, including common mistakes made by English speakers and how to sound more natural in Japanese. (Rieko - Thu, 8 Dec 2005)
• A Portuguese website about kanji. (tinho - Wed, 30 Nov 2005)
• Anthony Bryant's medieval Japan resource site. A lot on culture and crafts. (Emil - Wed, 9 Nov 2005)
• Nihongo Resources features a J <-> E and Kanji dictionary plus many study tool recommendations. The author has also written and made available online a concise introductory Japanese grammar book. (Raymond Calla - Tue, 8 Nov 2005)
• Shows correct stroke order for kanji. Click on a kanji to see it written out stroke by stroke. Kanji are listed according to reading. Japanese only. (Jesse - Tue, 12 Apr 2005)
• Kana Challenge page. (needs Flash) (Fri, 6 May 2005)
• Japanese for Busy People (I) learning supplements (Fri, 6 May 2005)
• WWW-based material at the Media & Systems Lab at the University of Nagoya (Fri, 6 May 2005)
• GenkiJapan, a flash based talking language site, with sections of useful phrases, an animated numbers song and a series of "matching pairs" katakana games. (Fri, 6 May 2005)
• Mystère des kanji is a new kanji and compounds game (Francis Delaunay - Fri, 20 May 2005)
• Another Grammar/teaching site. (Mon, 20 Jun 2005)
• The Speedanki site offers a system of Japanese kanji words (mostly jukugo) in flashcard format divided by level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Designed to help students drill to memorize kanji and expland their vocabulary quickly. (Quinlan - Wed, 17 Aug 2005)
• SpeakRealJapanese offers free Japanese lessons, information about Japanese culture, useful links, Japan news, photos, and more. (sushi-king - Fri, 30 Sep 2005)
• Kantango is a web based kanji learning, flash card, webfolder system.
• David Hallgren's Nihongo page has wordlists, a Java kana editor, etc.
• A Reading Tutorial Toolbox which parses Japanese text and explains the words in English or German.
• Taishukan, the publisher of the (Morohashi) Daikanwajiten kanji dictionary, has a Kanji page (in Japanese) which has a wealth of information, including an interesting Q&A section.
• One of the best lists of sites for Japanese educational resources is the one built and maintained by Charles Kelly. A new feature from Charles is the Daily Page with 36 kanji each day. It has a "mouse over" for the day's kanji, and you can click through to futher information, quizzes, vocab. lists, etc. (example) Charles also has a search engine pointing at his site.
• The Japanologie Wien Studentenseite is a site (in German) by students of Japanese Science at the University of Vienna, Austria. It has a growing number of articles how to use Japanese on German computers, useful software, learning resources and also reports and seminar papers.
• Nihon2go is a site focused on vocabulary and kanji training. Has lists from the Japanese for Busy People series and an extensive collection of sounds and example sentences.
• Stephen Nightingale's Yomihoudai site has a number of texts with the English translations of words as popups. Good reading aide.
• The kenkyuukai interactive online community for students of the Japanese language. Features include in-depth product reviews, forums, live chat (separated by romaji and kana), news from Japan, various articles, and more.
• A new kanji resource is the Taka Kanji Database. It features very nice animated stroke-diagrams implemented in Java.
• jp-lesson is a commercial site offering Japanese lessons online.
• Jim Rose's Kanji Cafe includes his Ice Mocha, which among other things has configurable kanji and vocab drills. Now includes JLPT wordlists. An interesting project there is a collaboration to build Stroke Order Diagrams for kanji.
• Jeff Blum's Kanji a Day email list lets you subscribe to a daily instructional email. Uses Jack Halpern's stroke-order diagrams. There is now a Grammar a Day mailing list as well.
• Another site oriented to the JLPT is JLPT Kanji. Contains drills of kanji sets at various levels, and links to EDICT entries.
• english2day is one of a growing number of "community" WWW sites offering support for language students. This one covers both English instruction (for Japanese) and Japanese for foreigners. They host a mirror of WWWJDIC too.
• Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar sets out to explain Japanese grammar in a systematic step-by-step process. Contains rational and intuitive explanations of grammar in a way that makes sense in Japanese.
• The Bible Japanese page may be of interest to learners. It has parallel Japanese/English texts, vocab, grammar points, etc.
• Renaud Bouret has developed a WWW-based kanji dictionary specifically as a teaching tool. Available as a CD-ROM too.
• The CosCom Language Service in Japan has a lot of interesting e-Learning materials. They also have some WWW-based instructional pages (if you enter via the English page it starts as romaji, but you can get it in kana/kanji by clicking the buttons on the right).
• The Japanese Study List is site enabling Japanese learners to practice translating Japanese newspaper articles, with feedback and discussion.
• Fuyosoft sells software-based instructional material based on manga. (I rather like it.)
• Lawrence Howell has written a self-teaching program for assimilating kanji according to word families which has a lot of information about kanji. You can also see Lawrence's Learning about Kanji series of articles on Kodansha International's theJapanPage.com site.
• Language Express has some vocab. kana, etc. cards that would be useful for elementary Japanese study.
• Here are some links specifically related to the JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test):
  • Charles Kelly has an interesting page linking words in the JLPT Vocabulary Lists to various online dictionaries. Useful for drilling.
  • Thierry Bézecourt has prepared some vocabulary lists. Recently Norbert Burger added the English translations from EDICT.
  • The Meguro Language Centre, as well as having course information online, has some very useful vocabulary lists, etc. for the JLPT.
• Some links related to Japanese language proficiency:
  • An extract from the 1987 ACTFL Japanese Proficiency Guidelines (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) relating to Japanese proficiency.
• The JapanEd company in NZ sells the Mac-only Understanding Japanese Verbs & Adjectives package and book.
• Some good audio resources for Japanese are at these sites:
  • Peer-to-peer (P2P) broadcasting is available for Japanese radio. Here is a list of stations and some software.
  • University of Victoria (Real Audio)
  • Stanford (QuickTime)
  • NHK's Japanese lessons on Radio Japan (Real Audio)
• Making a return after being missing for a few years is a revised form of the DL (dictionary linking) system for aiding text reading.
• A very nice package is WaKan, a freeware Windows system for learning Japanese and Chinese. Combines character dictionary, word dictionary, simple editor, vocabulary management, etc. Incorporates the Tanaka JE sentence corpus.
• MIT's Open Courseware page has links to some introductory Japanese courses. The MIT JP NET page also has some useful material and links. Perhaps best is their language curriculum material, which includes some brushstroke movies of kanji.
• Robert Bodnaryk's Kanji Mnemonics is an instruction manual for learning Japanese characters. Available as a book and/or CDROM.
• An interesting concept is the 121sensei.com teacher/student matching site.
• Laurie Arizumi's Nihongo Web at the University of Alabama is a very interesting Japanese language and culture distance learning course.
• Kumiko Kaneniwa has developed some interesting and challenging WWW quizzes. Here are links to the ones on Grammar and Newspaper reading.
• An excellent set of pages called A Logical Japanese Grammar have been written by Mash Satou. He also has a page on verb conjugation. (Mostly in romaji, but some kanji and kana.)
• Richard Harrison at the Nagoya University Education Center for International Students has a set of listening comprehension exercises online called ECIS Internet Hosokyoku. (Uses QuickTime, with RealPlayer being added.)
• A novel product is International BABY101 English & Japanese, a DVD to assist raising bi-lingual children.
• Bruce Dailey's ii-Kanji site is a WWW-based kanji and vocabulary learning tool that can be used on compact devices like i-Mode phones as well as normal browsers. Can be used for personal study lists.
• Another useful page from Jouji Miwa at Iwate Univ. is an easy page for using Goo's furigana service. Enter a URL and the page is returned with furigana added to the kanji.
• A rare piece of educational software for Unix/Linux is the kanatest kana drill program. Needs GTK 1.2+.
• An elementary Japanese course based on the Nihongo Shoho, with audio files, etc.
• Kim Allen's Japanese Tutorial contains an excellent summary of Japanese grammar and related topics. All the Japanese is in romaji.
• Friedrich Kemler has developed hyperlinked set of kanji-learning pages, based on KANJIDIC and EDICT.
• Francesc Corbalan has written some interesting flash-card pages to drill kana and kanji. They use a lot of Javascript, and need IE5 or NS6.
• For people considering teaching themselves Japanese I recommend Collin McCulley's Guide to Japanese Self-Study.
• Mary Sisk Noguchi at Meijo University in Nagoya has a Kanji Clinic column in the Japan Times. The WWW site has copies of the articles, plus a number of here other articles and reviews on Japanese language education.
• LL systems have another interesting page with Japanese Reading exercises which use selectable furigana (it says IE only, but seems to work in Firefox).
• An interesting Reading Tutor page is at Tokyo International University.
• Brian Kay's Reading Japanese pages have elementary Japanese instruction. Note that you need to be able to read kana.
• Nihongo Parotto is a beginners' Japanese package available on CD. It was developed by Denton Hewgill, who wrote the Kanji Gold program, and Hiroko Noro. Has ear training facilities as well as writing and grammar.
• The Homeschooling in Japan site has links and resources on Homeschooling and Afterschooling in Japan.
• Jack Halpern has written some interesting pages on Japanese Writing. You will need a Japanese-capable browser to read them. The Kanji Mnemonics from Henshall's "A Guide To Remembering Japanese Characters". They were keyed by William Clausing, and this page covering the kanji taught in the first six grades of school has been compiled with permission from Professor Henshall and his publishers, Tuttle. -->
• TV Oceania in Australia produces video and other educational material for Japanese language teaching (Select the Education menu item).
• A brief summary of some Japanese grammar which I keyed from some old notes. Needs a Japanese-capable browser, and has no romaji.
• Collin McCulley has some useful resources and links on this page.
• Juan Cardona Granda has written a Spanish-language Japanese Grammar summary based on Keith Smillie's shorter document (below). Available as a PDF file.
• The Japanese Language Schools in Australia site has useful information about courses, etc.
• Andy Searls has made a new version of Tad Perry's Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanese, with the romaji changed to kana. A great improvement.
• The Digital Learning site in Japan offers the MISJ (Mikiko Iwasaki's Systematic Japanese) online Japanese course for beginners.
• Some Japanese educational resources for Spanish-speakers can be found at the Gunkan site.
• Keith Smillie's 25-page Japanese Grammar Summary. In its original form it is available as a downloadable PDF or PS file. Keith also produced an HTML version (here). Juan Cardona Granda converted the romaji in the examples to kana and kanji, and his version is here.
• The Japanese Language Resource Center has a lot of useful material and links.
• Kanji School is a set of inexpensive Windows programs for learning kana and kanji.
• Ron Schei's WWW-based Flashcard system. Uses files from the EDICT family.
• I finally put a copy of Tad Perry's 1992 Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanese on my server.
• An excellent source of WWW reading material in Japanese is the Hiragana Times newsletter. It has versions in "normal" Japanese, hiragana and English.
• A new CD-ROM-based teaching package is called Human Japanese (as opposed to inhuman Japanese :-)). Haven't tried it at all. I hear it's now available for Windows and has apps for various mobile devices.
• At the Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka is a page of kanji from their textbook: Genki, published by The Japan Times. Each kanji is hot-linked to a QuickTime movie showing how it is written. Also available are hiragana and katakana lessons.
• Able LL Systems have an interesting Verb Inflection Analyzer. A trial can be downloaded.
• Shinji Takasugi's Teach Yourself Japanese makes a good start at providing an insight into Japanese orthography and grammar.
• The Joyo 96 Kanji Study Home Page. This is a series of pages devoted to aiding the teaching and learning of written Japanese. It includes: an interesting Paper Maker for making pages of printable Japanese text; a 144 page Katakana Tutorial based on Jorden's Reading Japanese; materials for studying the Joyo Kanji. Well worth visiting.
  Joyo has just introduced a Japanese Poem greeting card service, using classical poetry.
• An interesting page full of useful links is Maki Kamimura's Japanese Language page.
• An interesting Japanese Writing Tutor by Blake Sterzinger. This has some amazing animated examples of kana and kanji.
• Jouji Miwa's LESSON/J system, which does dictation drills, using Java Applets.
• David Sitsky at the ANU has developed a kanji flashcard system called flashkanji. It runs on a Unix box with Perl and C involved, and generates HTML kanji testing files. His site has gone, but you can get the code from the Monash ftp site.
• Also doing a kanji flashcard system is Marshall Ramsey's KanjiFlash. Go to the Nihongo ftp site and search for "KanjiFlash". Freeware Java (source included.)
• And another good flashcard system is Kanji Gold for Windows, developed by Denton Hewgill. It's GNU-licensed freeware.
• the Nihongo Learning Systems company has developed some interesting kana, kanji, gairaigo and vocabulary drilling systems
• and to help people who keep asking me for the "Japanese alphabet", here and here are images of the hiragana syllabary.

• General
  • An interesting lecture by Royall Tyler in 2003 on translating The Tale of Genji, and an interview he gave on Australian radio on that topic. In 2009 he also spoke at the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia on The Honor of Translating The Tale of Genji. Royall's translation is now available in paperback.
  • Some interesting articles relating to translation are available on the Japan Association of Translators (JAT) page.
  • Tom Gally, a senior and experienced translator in Japan, has some interesting links and documents in his translation page.
  • J-Net is the Japanese Network sub-group of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, the UK's professional body for translators and interpreters.
  • Honyaku (Japanese translators mailing list) Home Page. There is also a searchable archive of the mailing list postings.
  • HonyakuCafe.com - Social networking community for freelance English-Japanese translators. (honyakugirl - Mon, 15 Jan 2007)
• WWW Services
  • This interesting site has comparisons of the results from a number of popular JE/EJ translation programs.
  • Nifty hosts a URL-based translation service.
  • Among the sites which offer online translation of text and/or WWW pages is WorldLingo I don't think much of the quality of the results. This site also offers translation services, incl. quotations by email.
  • My own WWWJDIC doesn't translate text, but it has an option for translating the words within Japanese text. Try it here.

• A photography blog that introduces many tourist spots and places photographers love in Tokyo. (Rohan Gillett - Thu, 08 Oct 2020)
• Some time back Kevin Bucknall did some good videos on "Japan and its culture: an illustrated talk" here and here.
  He has since done another series:
  • Japanese Culture 1: National Pride - Conformity - Class System - Industrialisation
  • Japanese Culture 2: Attitudes Towards Failure - The Generation Gap - The Work Ethic
  • Japanese Culture 3: Appearance v. Reality - Memory and the Event - Spirits and Demons
  • Japanese Culture 4: Symbolism & Beliefs - Real Creatures
  (Kevin's book: Japan: Doing Business in a Unique Culture is still very relevant.) (Jim - Sat, 03 Jun 2017)
• Edonoyu is a guide to onsen in Tokyo in English and Japanese. (Daichi - Thu, 24 Nov 2016)
• Ken Seeroi's Japanese Rule of 7 is a collection of blog articles that provide an interesting insight into Japanese culture, etc. (Jim - Mon, 17 Oct 2016)
• An interesting overview of Japanese culture, language, etc. (Jim - Fri, 21 Nov 2008; revised 1 Oct 2016)
• Japanese Culture Posters at FreeArt. (Joe Kelnhofer - Fri, 27 May 2016)
• Tokyo Night Owl is the Tokyo nightlife guide and review for foreign tourists and residents of Tokyo. Late night clubs, bars, sex, sleep, and eats! You can also download our free Tokyo nightlife e-book. (Tim Chard - Sun, 08 Nov 2015)
• a nice collection of Japanese posters for sale. (Jim - Tue, 23 June 2015)
• Kimonogeisha.com is an international kimono portal, promoting current kimono and kitsuke related events. In addition, you get a lot of information about the art of kimono and geisha culture. (KimonoGeisha - Tue, 2 Dec 2014)
• Japanese Art Gallery specialising in shin hanga woodblock prints by Toshi Yoshida and Takeji Asano. (Mike - Mon, 5 Aug 2013)
• Lots of fun Japan Clip Art that would be great for designing websites/projects. (Josh Kasombo - Fri, 19 Jul 2013)
• Can Stock Image Library has 27,624 Japanese culture images, and is the community based sister site to Fotosearch. Users can create profiles and submit their own images to add to the collection. (Can Stock Photo (Japanese site).) (Josh K - Tue, 9 Jul 2013)
• Fotosearch Stock Photography Library has more than 62,000 images on Japanese Culture that users can view freely. (Fotosearch's Japanese site.) (You have to buy them if you want to use them - Jim) (Josh K - Tue, 25 Jun 2013)
• A useful site about Japanese theater (Noh, Kyogen, Kabuki, Bunraku, etc). (Jim Breen - Mon, 18 Feb 2013)
• Say no to romaji !, a resource promoting the use of kana in the Japanese learning industry, contains a discussion between students and teachers of Japanese on the subject of rōmaji. Japan Watch News Center is a daily digest of Japanese financial, economic, and political news intended for people with an interest in the Japanese financial market. (Titus North - Tue, 15 Mar 2011)
• The Japanofiles Podcast is a great site of weekly podcasts from Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture. (Makes me quite nostalgic as it was where I first lived in Japan, nearly 30 years ago. Jim) Highly recommended. (Jim Breen - Wed, 20 Oct 2010)
• Japanese-Buddhism aims to discuss, in plain words, the history, beliefs and symbols, among many other things, of Buddhism with a focus on Japan, where art and aestheticism is strongly influenced by the Zen school. (Hugo - Mon, 4 Oct 2010)
• An introduction to over 700 sightseeing spots in Japan, stay know-how in Japan, Japanese food, Japanese culture. (nori - Tue, 21 Sep 2010)
• Tabitabiya is an online shop selling a collection of fashion jika-tabi shoes, Japanese split-toe socks and kimono bags,... (Tabitabiya - Fri, 19 Feb 2010)
• Lilyhippo online shop for collectible Japanese Momiji dolls ideal for gifts (finesse - Thu, 28 Jan 2010)
• Cherry Blossom in Washington, DC. The National Cherry Blossom Festival celebrates springtime in Washington, DC as well as the 1912 gift of the cherry blossom trees and the enduring friendship between the people of the United States and Japan. (Anon - Wed, 27 Jan 2010)
• An article on the History of the Japanese Garden from the Garden Resources blog. (Daniel Isaacs - Sat, 23 Jan 2010)
• An interesting site about the gardens in Kyoto. You can take virtual strolls. (Ian - Sun, 10 Jan 2010)
• The Japanese Shop offers unique Japanese products and gifts. Visit us and find traditional Japanese tableware, art prints and woodblock prints. (Jez Willard - Sat, 9 Jan 2010)
• The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, has an educational site about traditional Japanese art, music, etc. (Jim - Thu, 10 Sep 2009)
• Let's Travel in Japan is a site about Japan and Japanese culture aimed at foreign travelers. (Hide - Mon, 10 Aug 2009)
• Japanese traditional products such as Noren, Kotatsu and Futon exported from Japan by beNippon. (beNippon - Tue, 4 Aug 2009)
• Japanese calligraphy artist Naoki Sakaguchi can create an original Japanese poems using your name. (Naoki Sakaguchi - Thu, 30 Jul 2009)
• some blogs dealing with Japanese culture:
  • Daruma Museum (Japanese Culture in its many aspects)
  • Washoku (Japanese food culture)
  • Japanese Festivals and Rituals
  • World Kigo Database
  (Greve - Fri, 25 July 2009)
• Japanese culture experience programs & tours in Tokyo for all lovers of Japanese culture. (Gaku KONO - Thu, 9 Jul 2009)
• My Tokyo Guide offers customized guided tours, travel packages and hotels in Tokyo and throughout Japan providing a truly genuine Japanese cultural experience (Eri - Fri, 8 May 2009)
• A very informative site about Tea Ceremony. (Jim - Thu, 19 Mar 2009)
• Togeii's weblog by Dave Pike is focused on Japanese ceramics and antiques with an occasional post about the village he lives in. (Dave Pike - Sun, 25 Jan 2009)
• News and information site about J-Dorama (Japanese TV series) and artists appearing in those series. (Daniel Franz - Thu, 25 Sep 2008)
• A very interesting site about temple lodging in Japan. (Hori - Wed, 4 Jun 2008)
• Fascinating Visualizing Cultures site at MIT with essays and images of recent japanese history. (Michael - Fri, 23 May 2008)
• Must Love Japan is a video travel guide to Japan. Contents cover various famous travel spots like Asakusa, Roppongi, nature, historical monument, hotels, restaurants, shopping districts, etc. (Toshi - Fri, 9 May 2008)
• WJAAS (Western Japanese Audio Appreciation) is a blog site about audio systems with a Japanese flavour. (twogoodears - Wed, 5 Mar 2008)
• Japan-Zone says it is one of the longest-established online guides to Japan and Japanese culture (since 1999), with a focus on popular culture. Includes a forum, daily entertainment news, and a friend finding network, ideal for anyone looking for a Japanese language exchange partner. (Mark McBennett - Wed, 6 Feb 2008)
• JapanGifts.com offers a fusion of traditional Asian and contemporary styles from many diverse places in the world. (Hayashi - Mon, 3 Dec 2007)
• A gateway to Japanese online-shopping sites. The site introduces Japanese online-shops and provides intermediate service. (Junya Sebata - Tue, 2 Oct 2007)
• For something different, Renaldo is a literature researcher in Tokyo currently investigating the influence, for better or worse, that Tsubouchi Shoyo's advocacy of "realism" had on post-Meiji literary history. His blog is both in Japanese and in English, and is at once a blog, a photo journal, a link to literary texts, a language course, a documentary and film collection, as well as a collection of music performances (some by Renaldo himself). (renaldo, or "gonbee" - Sun, 29 Jul 2007)
• Gallery Sakura is an online gallery dedicated to Japanese fine arts such as paintings (framed, scrolled) and prints (woodcut, lithograph). (Minoru Kuniya - Mon, 16 Jul 2007)
• An interpretation of Japanese architecture and what it can teach us. Attempts a philosophical take to dissect its nature and to reveal how it's different from the rest. (dino - Wed, 18 Apr 2007)
• The GoGoD site is devoted mostly to historical and social aspects of the game of go/weiqi/baduk. Covers also China and Korea but much of it relates to Japan. (John Fairbairn - Sat, 14 Apr 2007)
• Dancing Chopsticks is an educational, bi-lingual website focusing on the people who produce and sell food in Japan. (Aaron Kingsbury - Tue, 27 Feb 2007)
• JapanVisitor.com provides: online hotel booking services, flight reservations, Japan city guides, mobile phone rental, a select guide to what's on in Tokyo & Kyoto, and nightlife info, including restaurants, bars, clubs, cinemas and theaters. (Sanborn Brown - Thu, 8 Feb 2007)
• Japanese Temari from Barb Suess, Kiku Designs. New book (2007), photo gallery and free patterns. (Barbara Suess - Mon, 15 Jan 2007)
• A very nice page about Japanese dolls . Lots of links. (Terry Brown - Mon, 18 Dec 2006)
• Bilingual sermons (Japanese/English) by Pastor Takao Kiyohiro of the Shoei Church in Tokyo. (M.A.F. - Thu, 24 Aug 2006)
• Cultline is probably the largest Russian site about Japan, with a lot of information about literature, great artists, art of Japan and its writers. (cultline - Tue, 15 Aug 2006)
• Mark Schumacher's Japanese Buddhist Statuary site has been online since 1995. Over 1,000 photos of the Buddha, Bodhisattva, and Deva, plus reviews of hundreds of deities and demons in the Japanese Buddhist & Shinto pantheons. This site is widely referenced by universities, museums, galleries, art historians, Buddhist practitioners, and lay people from around the world. English, updated frequently, with deity names given in Japanese. (Mark Schumacher - Tue, 25 Jul 2006)
• Buddhist Artwork Store is Mark's online store specializing in hand-carved wood Buddhist statues made by master artisans for the Japanese market, and hand-crafted Buddhist artwork from China and Southeast Asia. Delivery to 50+ countries. All artwork is accompanied by useful reference notes, including Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese spellings. (Mark Schumacher - Tue, 25 Jul 2006)
• A site about Daruma dolls. Explanation, shopping, etc. (darumajp - Wed, 12 Jul 2006) The
• Kamakura Print Collection features photogravure etchings by Peter Miller, on Japanese washi or etching paper. The site focuses on Japan, with prints in the Temples, Furusato, Winter Gardens, Seascapes, and Dreamscapes Series. Other Series whose style and mode of perception are influenced by Japanese aesthetics include the Silk Road, Mongolia, and other Series. (Peter Miller - Tue, 6 Jun 2006)
• Unique and traditional Japanese gifts made by Japanese artisans. One of a kind Tea Ceremony bowls, indigo dyed Noren and more... (Stephen Genova - Sat, 27 May 2006)
• Centering upon FushidansekkyO is a site for those who are interested in this aspect of Japanese Buddhist literary arts and performing arts. (Hitomi Dever - Wed, 26 Apr 2006)
• The slightly quirky JDorama site is for fans of Japanese (TV) drama. It has a database of both works and artists. (Jim - Wed, 1 Mar 2006)
• Neculai Amalinei is a pioneer of Japanese education in Romania. His Shogun site is dedicated to the people interested in the study of Japanese Culture. The site will be related to Japanese History and Japanese Civilization as well, in an attempt to reveal the importance of the Japanese Nation in the cultural background of the world. The site is in both Romanian and English. (Neculai Amalinei - Thu, 17 Nov 2005) - amended by Jim
• Consists of photos taken during a 3-year residence in a rural farming town on the Pacific coast east of Tokyo. Many of the photos are of temples, shrines, and other places far off the tourist track. (Michael Thaler - Fri, 3 Jun 2005)
• Douglas Brooks has been studying wasen zukuri traditional Japanese boatbuilding since 1990. He has built boats for museum in the United States and Japan and has published numerous articles on Japanese boatbuilding. (Douglas Brooks - Mon, 29 Aug 2005)
• Japanese Free Clip Art provides copyright-free clip art images related to Japan. Check out the Ukiyo-e and Kamon clip art and wallpapers! (Dai - Sat, 24 Sep 2005)
• Edo-Tokyo is a non-profit-website about architecture, urbanism and related culture of Tokyo (and Japan). (In German, but English will follow bit by bit.)
• The Japanese Connection site has a mass of arts and craft information (commercial site).
• The Hello from Nippon page has been made two university students researching "How do people in the world feel about Japan?" It is perhaps most useful as a reflection of what (some) Japanese people think foreigners think of Japan. The questionnaire is a delight.
• JapaneseLifestyle: an Australian site detailing Japanese culture, lifestyle, fashion and food. Includes detailed coverage of Japanese events held in Australia.
• The Shoji Styles site contains essays on shoji decor and designs.
• The Takumi Japanese Dolls Shop sells Kokeshi and Sasano-bori dolls, as well as having some general information on Japanese dolls.
• Watashi to Tokyo is a personal magazine about living in Tokyo.
• Youkaimura is an online village of youkai, or Japanese supernatural beings.
• The a wealth of information. Part of its site is an encyclopaedic WWW directory called Web Japan.
• Also in the Web Japan site is the Nipponia (magazine in furiganaed Japanese for foreigners) magazine.
• JapaneseStreets is a site which follows Japanese street culture and the fashion trends of Japan's trendy youths.
• A page on Japanese incense.
• The World Haiku Review is the journal of the World Haiku Club.
• The Trek Japan pages have photographs, recipes and information about Japanese schools.
• theJapanPage.com is the official web site for Kodansha International documenting the best in Japanese culture, including Language, Martial Arts, Home & Gardens, Hobbies, Travel, Cooking, Art and Literature.
• Barbara Chambers has built some very informative pages on Enka and captioning little-known shoujo animation.
• The page of the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts contains information about classes in traditional Japanese systems of yoga, healing arts, martial arts, and fine arts (calligraphy/painting and flower arrangement).
• Michi Online is a new electronic journal of the Japanese cultural arts, sponsored by the Sennin Foundation, Inc. Has an excellent arts-oriented link collection, as well as articles.
• I agonized a little before putting in this link to Kris's Young Dudes Guide to Japan. Maybe I'm too old.(I have even received requests that the link be removed on the grounds that the site has mysogynistic and homophobic material. I am considering this, but in the meantime I am adding this warning if you choose to visit it.)
• The About.com site has an interesting page on Japanese Culture, with articles written by an American student of Japanese culture.
• Georges Bouvier has a page devoted to Kutani ceramics.
• Ed Kaspar has assembled a well-annotated Photos of Japan gallery of his photography.
• Well worth a visit is the Tokyo Q weekly guide to happenings in Tokyo (the recently gave this page "Link of the week"!)
• The Japan Echo bimonthly journal on topics of interest in Japan today.
• The current month's issue of ISSHO News.
• Matt Malcomson's Japanese Accents page, which has useful information for foreigners living in Japan, including; information, destinations, fiction, and links.
• the Linc WWW Server, which has some interesting stuff, including information on the XVIII Olympic Winter Games in Nagano-ken.
• Don Weiss's Echoes of Incense, which describes his book about his 88-temple pilgrimage in Shikoku (a lot of in-line gifs).
• An interesting page of Japanese information and links at the Mining Company, developed by Namiko Abe.