にほんごをまなぼう　Lets Study Japanese is an interactive site based around school activities made by the Japanese Ministry of Education.

It is almost completely in Japanese. There are some English explanations of what to do, but otherwise it’s an immersive program. You click on pictures and you get a dialogue or a description written in kana and spoken to you in Japanese at the same time.

Both polite Japanese, the masu desu form, and casual plain Japanese is provided. The children mainly speaking plain form and adults polite form.

It sems to be mainly a teachers resource but I’m sure most students would be able to navigate it by themselves and learn new things. You might need to know your kana, but even then you could read along with the audio to improve your kana and there are learning kana screens as well.

sections include
15. じかんわり（jikanwari – timetable) for telling the time and dates
4. からだのなまえ（parts of the body)
3. トイレ (toilet)
10. きゅうしょく (school lunch)
11. そうじ (cleaning)

There’s a lot of vocabulary here presented in an interesting manner, it’s worth a look. I’ve learnt some new words already.

It needs shockwave and java I think. On my setup some of the voicerecording modules don’t seem to load, but you might have more luck. Also some directories seem to be missing. It also uses frames as well as shockwave which makes it hard to bookmark sections unfortunately. The last update was Heisei13 which I think is 2002 so it’s a bit dormant perhaps.

Related posts:

1. 漢字学習ステップ８級 • Kanji Study Step Level 8
2. Self Study Kana Workbook
3. JLPT 3 Kanji and Vocabulary Tests

3級編　例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉 – 西口 光一 (著)　（スリーエーネットワーク）

These books could do with snappier titles. What we have here is another learn to read and write kanji book. The difference is this is the first one I’ve found that specifically covers kanji for JLPT and the vocabulary for JLPT. And it does this through reading passages. That’s what really inticed me to buy it.

It’s different from how I’ve usually seen kanji books.
In each unit, first there is about a page long passage to read. In this the kanji will have furigana and the vocabulary and grammar are at a suitable level. Then there is the usual practice sheet giving stroke order and a model kanji to copy. However instead of giving on-yomi and kun-yomi it uses words from the reading passage and those specific readings. It doesn’t give the English here. Then there are brief notes in Japanese about the vocabulary. Each unit also has a worksheet of reading and writing exercises. It has pleasant illustrations and is very nicely designed and laid out. Kanji not from JLPT3 are marked as such.

Lastly there is a full index of JLPT kanji with English meanings, on-yomi, kun-yomi and JLPT3 vocabulary that uses those kanji. Finally I have a definitive list I can put into my flashcard program. And there are also several tests at the end of the book.

This isn’t really a book to learn japanese from scratch. The book specifically recommends that you have finished an elementary course of study or are halfway through one. I suppose otherwise you won’t have the grammar or an understanding of the kana vocabulary.

The first two sections cover the 284 JLPT3 kanji which includes the JLPT4 kanji. They also cover 508 kanji words using these kanji. Most of the reading is in section 2 following the story of I-san and her friends in Japan. The last section introduces 131 JLPT2 kanji; probably because they are necessary to use some words properly. I suspect if JLPT3 is your goal you could probably skip Section 3 for now.

I bought this on Amazon.jp. but I’ve since seen this at JP Books in London.

It’s probably at least a days work to cover a unit. Even if you have more time I doubt it would be useful to do more than one unit in a day. I estimate the JLPT3 part of the book would require at least 24 hours work over 2 months　in order to learn to read the characters consistently. Writing would need more practice and review and take longer. Unfortunately the publishers didn’t include stroke order information but they made an accompanying web site with animated stroke orders.

Time to get started!

Related posts:

1. JLPT3 Grammar Mock Test Papers
2. 55 Reading Comprehension Tests for JLPT3
3. Unicom Preparatory Course For JLPT3

Alex Chapin (MacGraw-Hill)

While waiting on a friend in a bookshop I wandered towards the languages section as usual. I found this reasonably priced little title from MacGraw-Hill. It effectively turns your iPod into a talking phrasebook. One less book to carry if you’re taking your iPod to Japan anyhow. (Although books don’t run out of power or break when you drop them).

The package consists of a CD with 1621 files on it, that’s 5.4 hours and 314.2MB of content, and a booklet of all the phrases and also some suggestions on using it. All the files are clearly recorded by a native speaker. They are broken down into sections using Artist and Album to make finding a phrase quite easy. The text of the phrase is in English and Romaji in it’s title and the Lyrics feature contains the entire section in English, romaji and kanji.

The way I tend to use a phrasebook is to check on something and refresh my memory before piling in to a language transaction like reserving tickets. I think this product would be as good as any print phrasebook for most uses.
For language learning I think it’ll help me expand my vocabulary a little and help give me phrases to instantly insert into my conversation attempts.

Well worth the £10 it costs.

Related posts:

1. Oxford Starter Japanese Dictionary
2. Japanese on an iPod Touch
3. Basic Japanese Through Comics (parts 1 and 2)