In my last post about choosing Japanese classes I talked about the importance of speaking and listening to native Japanese speakers. It is something I believe is very important for those wanting to speak Japanese. I also mentioned that those interested in the chance to learn and speak with a native Japanese speaker should stay tuned. Well I have some good news.

I have received a number of comments and mails from people wondering how to go about finding a Japanese speaking partner or teacher. After a bit of convincing, I was able to get my wife (a Japanese native from Tokyo) to start teaching classes on Edufire. Eri is from Tokyo, but graduated from college in the US, so she knows what it takes to learn a foreign language.

Her main focus will be teaching conversational Japanese and greetings. To start out with, she is offering two free classes that will take place in the next few days. She is also planning to run smaller more private classes in the future and students who attend these classes will have first shot at them. You can find more information on the classes here: Free Japanese Classes.

The classes will basically cover the same material (I believe), but I recommend you to sign up for both to get extra practice.

Free Japanese Class

Read More

Since I started Japanese Words I have tried to give a lot of tips and information about how to learn Japanese. I have given tips on choosing books, study tools, study methods, studying the right words (including common words lists) and a few tips on grammar. The one thing I haven’t done is create videos teaching you how to speak Japanese. There is a good reason for this. I lack one very important credential: I am not a native Japanese speaker.

Yes, I studied abroad as a university student and now currently live and work in Japan. I speak Japanese everyday and conduct my daily activities in Japanese. But my spoken Japanese is not perfect, and almost no non-native Japanese speaker is. Even if they use all the right grammar and all the right words, they will almost always have an accent. And since you are trying to learn perfect Japanese, you need to hear perfect Japanese. This is something a non native Japanese speaker can’t provide.

I would even go one step further and say that you should learn from a native speaker who speaks the “standard” dialect. In Japan’s case this is the dialect spoken in the Kanto area (Tokyo and the surrounding areas).

Grammar can easily be learned from books, but how to actually speak and which expressions to use in the right situations and how to pronounce them correctly requires  practice with a native speaker.

For those who are wanting to find a native Japanese speaker to learn and practice Japanese, stay tuned….I will posting about this soon!

Read More

So you finally figured out how to read and write Japanese on your computer (if you haven’t, do this right away). The problem is that the standard fonts for Japanese aren’t very good. In addition to just being plane bad looking or difficult to read, there may occasionally be characters that don’t show up. Since you will see Japanese words written in all different kinds of fonts and handwriting, it is also a good idea to get used to lots of different ones. But don’t worry. This post is all about choosing a new font.

Michele Romanini (the same person who turned the 1000+ common Japanese words into an SRS list) has found a great list of fonts that can be downloaded. Since there are quite a few different kinds of fonts, you should be able to find something to your liking.

Installing fonts will vary depending on the OS you are using, but there is a a lot of documentation on the web. Simple type “installing fonts in (name of your OS)”.

You can find the Japanese Fonts at the link below

Japanese Fonts

Read More

I am always on the lookout for good Japanese learning tools. With all the available channels there are a lot of different types products, but to be honest, many fall very short of really teaching you the language. But every once and a while, I happen to stumble across one that really impresses me. What’s even better is that this particular video series is completely free.

Now I will admit that Let’s Learn Japanese is a little bit outdated, but the over all content is great (and I did mention free right?).

The videos do a great job, of putting the Japanese words and conversation in context so you can get an understanding even if you don’t understand the Japanese. They then break it down and explain the meaning and have you practice the various Japanese phrases and words .

The other thing I like is that the series is shot as a funny and interesting little story. While it isn’t a blockbuster, I thought the film crew did a good enough job that I wanted to keep watching. The story line follows Yan, a foreigner coming to work and live in Japan.

There was also a companion book for the video series called “Let’s Learn Japanese”, but it seems to be out of print now. I was able to find some PDF copies on Scribd.

You can find the rest of the Japanese videos below:

Japanese Basic I- I am Yan

Read More

I happened to come across what I think is a very good video for practicing Japanese pronunciation.

Japanese doesn’t have a lot of sounds, but some of the sounds it does have are difficult for English speakers. Luckily, the more you practice the better you will get. Even if you are advanced, getting back to the basics every once and a while is a good idea.

Read More

The most popular post on JapaneseWords.net has been 1000+ Japanese Words List. As the title suggests, the post contains a list of over 1000 common Japanese Words and Kanji. I am proud to announce that the list has just gotten much better.

Thanks to the hard work of Michele Romanini and his wife Bika Fujioka, the list is now available for download for Anki and Mnemosyne. In addition to making the list usable in Anki and Mnemosyne, he has also divided the original into multiple lists (english to hiragana, hiragana to English, English to Kanji, etc). The ability to use Anki will allow you to study over 1000 common words and kanji in a very efficient manner.

I have included two files below. One is in “mem” format (Mnemosyne format) and the other in txt format. Either one can be imported into Anki.

 

Japanese Word Lists

Click Here to download Mnemosyne format

Click Here to download txt format

Japanese Study Tip

When dealing with a list of this size it can be a little bit overwhelming. Setting up a study schedule and a goal will prove to be very helpful. For instance, you might try to learn 5 or 10 new words a day. Or choose the date of completion and then figure out the number of words you will need to remember each day!

Special Thanks

Thanks once again to Mr. Romanini and Mrs. Fujioka for their  hard work! Putting this list into a format usable by Anki and Mnemosyne greatly improves it’s value

Read More