I Can Help you all since i'm japanese living in Japan!!
PM me if you wanna learn Japanese (BE AWARE! : I only help when I got the time!)

A few weeks ago, I posted a plug-in for Firefox that injects Furigana into the web browser when displaying Japanese webpages. Now I get to post one for IE 5.5+ !

jBrowse -- Free Japanese Dictionary Browser Plugin

I think the Firefox one is easier to use, if you have the option. For those that for whatever reason don't or can't have Firefox, here's a pretty good alternative!

There are other features besides just Furigana display. Check the link and read about it for yourself ^_^ .

:)
 

Romaji Translator at Romaji.org

a very nice site that converts kanji, kana into romanji. :):D

I've been toying with the idea of learning a new language for quite sometime now and Japanese was on the top of my list due to its slight similarity to my own native tongue. I started two weeks ago and I already have the Hiragana and Half the Katakana down...and the site you linked is highly useful.
Thank you sir =)
and thank you to all the other posters as well...some of them are a tad bit more advanced for me, but they will definitely come in handy when I reach there. =)

Ideas needed
 

Hi, everyone

I am a newcommer here, if got into a wrong Thread pls exuse me.

I am in search for some learning mateials for very small children, under 2 years old, in fact my baby is 1.9 y.o., mixed Japanese.
juuust starting talking.
My Japaneese husband is of little use here, and we are living in Germany now. Bitte-bitte and Nein! go stronger than Doomo and doozo, and I don't use any Japanese with the baby to keep up my native language.
Anyway, if I do speak,it would be a broke language I 'd hate to hear from my daughter.

Anythig to help my husband play with the baby teaching her?
Any resource you or your friends know with songs,rhymes and finger games?
Short picture stories?
online international stores?

If you posess this sacred knowledge :) would you be so generous to share it with me?:confused:

From my limited experience in teaching toddlers, I've found that flashcards and stories don't seem to help much unless they already have a basic understanding and are starting to be able to recognize characters.

They best thing to do is simply interact with them in the language, and have the pick up on verbal and audio cues.

Maybe your husband remembers some Japanese games he used to play when he was a young tot himself? Some nursery rhymes?

Might be too early to do something like "jan-ken-pon" though (rock-paper-scissors).

Mabe some songs:
http://www.mamalisa.com/world/japan.html

At 2 years your child might not have the motor skills to do a lot of the hand-games, but I could be mistaken.

One thing I found that worked for basic numbers was using your thumb and pinky fingers to count to 5, then have a "blast-off" kind of thing. Make a lot of noise, etc:
-> close your fist and extend your thumb and pinky as far as you can out (for extra silliniess, blow on your thumb and "pop" out your pinky)
-> reverse one hand, and connect thumbs to pinkies of the other hand (right pinky - left thumb, left pinky - right thumb)
-> count up to five as you walk the fingers on the bottom to the top

Silly sounding game, but it does seem to work.

But the most important thing would simply be for you or your husband to interact with your child in the language.

thank you
 

YES!
thank you so much, this link is already helpful:どん　ぐり　ころ　ころ　song　I have on DVD with some other songs, and they are played at the japanese kindergarten play group twice a month...those doo-yoo songs are followed with a rather complicated series of hand games.If baby recognises the song, she 'd easier follow the group .
I am an ESL teacher myself and use the skills to teach the baby my native language. And know that even the mother tounge must be taught, by the simple interaction of everyday chores the variables of the language are not properly trained, and here serve those games and rhymes.
How come a man does not remember any? It may be,that too many years of proper training deleted early memories:), I also have to revise them for self.
The toddler needs abot 50 times repetition to acquire a new word combination or a skill. Just few phrases in the evening and 1,5 hours once a week in "class" bring little effect.
The very funny thing is that the kindergarten instructors are not cooperative to provide any of their learning materials to copy. We are the only couple here with a non-japanese wife.Maybe, they simply don't realise how come we don't know those very basic things. And I have to collect them by little bits.
Anything now would help.
this is the concept in English Super Simple Songs - Easy English songs for kids. does anything like this exist in Japanese?

Hey,
there seems to be lots of good free kanji sites, but I was wondering if anyone knows a sufficient, free way of learning to speak Japanese? I found some sites but they are really quiet pricey...help would be appreciated :) Oh, And I apologize if this should be in a seperate thread/sticky :confused: Dx

Flirting and Dating Japanese Phrases
 

Not sure how good the translations are but there's some funny Flirting and Dating Japanese phrases at

Pillow Talk Japan

In hiragana and romaji so good for reading practice at least!!!!