Reviews of Japanese Instructional Sites
 

MMM and Nyororin had a great idea for a thread, and it builds off (in a more productive and positive way) from the last thread on a similar topic.

Let's have a thread where we review sites that purport to teach Japanese! This way, if people have questions about what sites to use to supplement their learning, they can come check here for the good, middling, and bad.

Ground Rule(s)/Guideline(s):
1. DO say why you think a site is good or bad.
2. DO NOT just say "this site rawks" or "turrible site."
(more to be added as we think of them)

Remember, the goal here is to be honest and unbiased in our reviews.

I'll start off in the next day with a review of 123japanese.com and try to make amends for my incendiary comments about it by being a bit more fair and constructive in my criticism. I may do a review of Tae Kim after that unless someone else does it first. I think it's only fitting that our #1 go-to site gets reviewed soon.

Even if you don't want to review a site, perhaps suggest it in the thread, and I can add it to the list of sites to review!

REVIEWED SITES (click to go to review)
KanaQuest.com (thanks, MMM!)
Renshuu.org (thanks, Columbine and BenBullock!) and see Nyororin's followup
Core 6000: Mastering Intermediate Japanese (thanks, DriXnaK!)

Sites to Review
123japanese dot com
Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

One of our members has this site in his/her signature:

kanaquest.com

I am finding the simplified explanations on this site turning what would be a chapter in a textbook or an hour in a classroom into three or four sentences more negative than positive for new learners (or for veterans like me, really).

A fourth Japanese writing system is romaji, which as you might guess, is Japanese script in Latin characters. This is used as a step to Hiragana, or just for understanding written Japanese without having to know Japanese characters.

Romaji is not a Japanese writing system. Yes, many Japanese companies write their names using the alphabet. However that does not mean that the alphabet is a major player in communicating in Japanese.

Reviews of Japanese Instructional Sites
 

An excellent idea - I look forward to future posts in this thread. Thanks everyone for sharing :)

I'd be interested in what people make of renshuu.org - personalized studying for Japanese vocabulary, kanji, grammar, and more!.

It looks interesting. For me I find the kanji review sections a bit crowded and too much like trying to read a dictionary but they do provide a lot of information. Some of the vocab lists look a bit funny; not sure I'd put しゅうへんas the first word to learn at beginner's level, and nor would I translate it as "grove, small woods" so that makes me suspicious of the accuracy. However the example sentences all seem to use it correctly.

Which brings me to a navigational glitch- plenty of words are listed with "No example sentences are available at this grammar level," but there are if you figure out to click the 1,2,3 page buttons to the right. I like that you can rate the examples and that they have a hover over function for the kanji in them.

It's quite clever how you can set up the testing options to suit yourself, but it's a bit annoying that if you don't first specify all the kanji you know you can't jump to filling in the blanks, and it'll give you things like 間ちがえる instead of 間違える.

Interesting how it follows a text book. I think it could overall be a good support for people using the textbooks, but I do wonder a little about copyright. On the other hand, it's not got clear, explicit grammar lessons.

Overall I like the look of it, but it might be overwhelming for a beginner to use. Certainly you need a bit of experience with Japanese and some nouce at using websites to get the best out of it and the support of a textbook would be recommended.

After seeing the comment about しゅうへん, I just had to go and see what sort of definitions they were giving for things.

Just in the first lesson, there were quite a few very very strange "definitions" for words that I find it quite hard to believe should be introduced to a beginner.
For example, the しゅうへん(周辺) Columbine pointed out...
もっと being defined as gold, money, metal.
きょうきゅう(供給) being defined as day/sun.
いりょう(医療) as birth.
ほしい(欲しい) as cooperation...

And it goes on and on. I have NO idea where they are coming up with these definitions, and would suggest avoiding at least that part of the site.

A site for studying that defines 勉強 as "attendant" has some serious problems.

ETA; I really can`t stop laughing at it. 釣る is "child" and 車 is "go down"! Please look at the list for some great raised eyebrow and head shaking fun. One or two mistakes is one things, but this is almost 1 out of every 5.

I almost think someone's used a double translation. Maybe Japanese to chinese to English or something. Or else someone's abused the open edit system. Certainly flags that not enough native speakers are policing the content.

As far as I can tell (I didn't spend that long looking), however, the Genki lists and Minna no Nihongo lists are correct.

kantango

This is a resource more than a lesson site. The main section is a search engine/dictionary. If you sign up (it's free) you can create word lists and access other people's by clicking on 'provider'. I recommend "Brookes" which is a university and has plenty of lists from the Basic Kanji series and Minna no Nihongo plus some poetry for interest. I mostly use it as my go-to quick stop for looking up kanji. It's about 95% accurate, but occasionally i need to double-check for nuance.

GOOD POINTS:

You can input romaji if you don't know the hiragana or kanji
It holds the majority of common Japanese names, which is useful, although it does give you EVERY name option, so in cases where you've no hiragana and no idea how it's pronounced it can come up with 20 options.
You can create flash cards and custom quizzes
You can access other people's word lists and quizzes.
No ads; it's clean and easy to navigate

BAD POINTS:

You cannot look up the kanji if you only know the english word.
You cannot search by radical
Sometimes the definitions are a bit abstract.
It can be time-consuming to make lists.
Not a great teaching tool, but a good support for learners with other materials.

I posted a link to an "ilegal" site so I deleted it! Sorry

This thread is for reviews, not generic links.

And while that link looks good, it's also rife with illegal stuff. I don't think JF wants to link to illegal stuff. I suggest a mod delete your post.

Hiragana and Katakana Practice — Real Kana

Realkana is a website I stumbled upon by accident really, but I have used it a lot to practice remembering the different kana.

You can also choose the kana that you wish to practice, weither you only want to practice half the hiragana, all the hiragana or katakana or both, if you get a kana that you don't know or can't remember you can move your cursor over the symbol and it will tell you the correct romaji, and also how many of your answers have been correct or wrong.

Unlike some other sites I've seen where you get options to choose from, on realkana you have to write the romaji yourself, which makes it a little harder.

I think that's about all that I can mention right now, so.. the end. :ywave:

Jim Breen's JDIC at WWWJDIC: Word Search. One of the most comprehensive sites available. Has multiple links to other web resources.

I have created this website with my Japanese friends
 

Learn Japanese Language Free and Easy

Because of the limit of my ability, it only covers basic Japanese. But it should be enough for potential learners to decide whether Japanese language is something they should invest their time and money in.

Please pull your punches when you criticize. :)

Japanese - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

I've recently found this site, and I think it's ten times better than my first crappy text book. But I guess it's better to have people with higher Japanese language skills judge it :)

Wow, this looks awsome for someone like me still studying grammar!! Thank you much for sharing!! I hope it's right!!

Denshi Jisho - Online Japanese dictionary

Most of you have heard of it, it's a good dictionary that has ezample sentences for most terms, kanji by radical look ups and more!!
Go, Nao, Grr!!

Opinions on freejapaneselessons.com?
 

Any one have a comment on the following website? I searched this forum but no hits . . . .

Free Japanese Lessons - Learn to speak Japanese online for free!

my opinion
 

I am going to review the top 2 website for learning Japanese, or least top to that are recomended or talked about the most. japanesepod101.com and 123japanese.com


Learn Japanese online. With our podcast, learning Japanese is easy. | JapanesePod101.com

I think this website is great if you want to download and listen to content with you. Its good for busy people who would rather listen on the go, than sit down and read. For the most part, they do have a lot of content, many lessons that help people.

But there are a lot of downsides. The website isn't free, which isn't the problem, the problem is they are misleading about thier prices and what you get. I'm not going to give exact numbers, because they seem to change frequently, so I will use example figures.

You can sign up for a free account, but they mislead you when they say you have "access" to thousands of lessons. You only have access to about 30 audio clips at the most with a free account. Then if you want to upgrade, there are hidden fees, and the prices arn't really up front. You get locked in a contract that automatically renews, and you actually don't get to access ALL the content.

Now asside from the financial downpoints of the website. I find its NOT well organised, and lessons are not even sorted correctly. Infact, the lessons on the website go like this . They play an audio clip thats about 2 mins long of a story, then they directly translate the words in the story. So the only bits of the language your getting is pits of a story, which I really don't think is a good way to learn a language.

It makes things confusing for people who are ACTUALLY a begginer. They jump into saying numbers like 4,10,8 (example) without even giving you the knowledge of the other numbers, you have to keep watching, hopeing they will cover this information.

I belive the website is only good if you already know some Japanese.




123 Japanese - Learn Japanese online for free


This website is the opposite of japanesepod101. It actually has no audio clips, except for the video lessons. You can't download any content, and you view it right on the website. So if your looking for something to study away from the computer, its impossible.

The website is 100% free, which is a bonus. But really shocks me is how much content they actually have for a free website. Its true when they say they have the largest vocabulary section, They really do. about.com japanese section has a pretty large vocabulary section, but this website has a larger one, and it certianly is easyer to view.

The one downside is there is no search feature, so you can't search if your looking for a certian word, you gotta go through the catagories.

Another downside is parts of the website seem to be incomplete, the kanji section actually doesn't have all the kanji, for the longest time the section said underconstruction. Usually when a website doesn't have a section thats complete yet, they don't make it available to the public, because it probably makes them look bad. But i guess it is a benifit depending on how you look at it, at least viewers will get Some information, as it gets built.

I am going to review a website I first used for studying Japanese before going to university:

Japanese Grammar Guide | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

This site is really good as a supplement for people in their first year studying Japanese and even goes as far as covering some JLPT N2 (maybe N1 as well) grammar points. It's in an easy-to-understand tutorial format and also forces you to know at least kana (kanji have labels when you hover over them so you can read them, or at least until the later chapters).

There is also JLPT Study page which is a great site for those trying to study the JLPT vocab and kanji, but unfortunately this site doesn't provide everything. The grammar list is limited. I believe they're in the middle of updating it. :)

@pandaman101: Yes, Japanesepod101 is a good listening supplement. I would recommend it, especially to those at an intermediate level of Japanese. It can get a bit repetitive for advanced level.

I've always wondered about Japanesepod101... I hear about it all the time but when I went there the organization of the site wasn't very good and the constant emails were annoying but then again I didn't pay for it.

Also I'd like to suggest;
The Kanji Game
It teaches the meanings of individual kanji. Honest to god dude, this is how I learned Grade 1-6 kanji :D Despite its retro-ness and simplicity it's an awesome little game.

Annnd finally did you guys hear that smart.fm is shutting down? That was my favorite site for vocab D': iKnow is pretty awesome but it won't be free for much longer.

Someone has taken smart.fm's vocab lists and converted them into Anki format. I've never used smart.fm, but I'm aware there's like a 6000 or 10000 or 20000 word database for Anki, and I think it's categorized by level of difficulty or something.

Oh yeah, I think I've seen it before :D So it won't be gone forever. A friend of mine also made a quiz note of the Core 2000. (We haven't made one for the Core 6000) JapaneseClass.jp | BigNote by spanz

Which brings me to my another suggestion; JapaneseClass.jp | Learn Japanese Online: Vocabulary & Kanji Building
This is a simple site made by one college student who's an awesome guy. He listens to the users' suggests and complaints (In fact, the custom quiz note feature was an idea I suggested and he made it ;) )

This looks great for someone like me still studying grammar!! really helpful thanks.

This seems like a great collection of sites guys. Does anyone have any recommendations for more intermediate-level sites?

I found this .net site, Japan Digest, that seems really good for beginners.

Hi,

Can I offer up a site for review ?
Learn Japanese Online is a blog which offers listening to native Japanese, reading and Kanji plus vocabulary and English translations.

I think it is basically a free version of Hiragana Times, but on steroids !

Can I ask for a review of my site/tool? It's called Nihongo Master where you can Learn Japanese Online.

I'd love some honest feedback and how to improve the site to make it a better study tool for Japanese. I'm looking forward to seeing the feedback here or you can send me a message.