I love the Japanese Kanji Study app on Android. I’ve had it for so many years I can’t remember when I started using it! The UI is smooth, aesthetically pleasing, and easy to use. The information available is diverse—you can
Learning beginner level Japanese can be frustrating at times when you want to be able to do more with the language. I often see people asking about reading materials for JLPT N5 and N4 level learners. The trick is that
With less than a month before the December JLPT it’s time to start doing some JLPT practice questions! Many people will go to the JLPT website and try their tiny quantity of sample questions. But these are often easier than
This is a great tool to help you teach yourself Japanese for free! I made this half for the Speak Japanese Fluently in Just 1 Year Challenge! (Part 1) and half for someone else. It lays out 14 weeks (3.5
Learning Japanese particles as a beginner is a MASSIVE pain in the butt! There are LOTS of guides online for how to use them, but they’re not very useful all the time. Sometimes the explanations are too complicated as they
Japanese grammar is actually surprisingly easy once you get it. Basic grammar is at least. It’s like a maths problem; + x – etc., all have their own uses and places, it’s the numbers around them that change the meaning
This years round of Japanese Language Proficiency Tests are over! Yaaaay! Well done to everyone who took them! I hadn’t realized that taking the JLPT twice a year (in June AND December) was only done in a few countries. The
Japanese Kanji Study is probably the best Android app I’ve ever used for studying kanji. I’ve studied kanji in many different ways over the years. Books, classes, apps, drilled kanji, read kanji, my own flashcards, etc. But nothings worked in
日本語単語スピードマスター (Nihongo Tango Speed Master) is a relatively unknown series of books which focus just on Japanese vocabulary. And I’m surprised it’s unknown because all the books contain a lot of vocabulary, and lots of vocabulary that doesn’t appear in
Another session of JLPTs are over in some countries which means the next ones are only 6 months away in December! Whether you’ve just taken an exam or are taking one for the first time it’s good to start preparing
I’ve noticed that lots of people want to start learning Japanese but the prospect of kanji is intimidating. A lot of people tell me they’re afraid of kanji, and don’t want to learn it! It’s not like hiragana and katakana
With only two and a half weeks before the JLPT for July 2015 some of you may be feeling a number of things. Stress, anxiety, boredom. Keeping yourself motivated is something I’ve written about in the past but I feel like
“What do I do once I’ve learnt hiragana and katakana?” In a post last year I advised that the first thing a person starting to learn Japanese should do is learn hiragana and katakana. This post listed various resources you
When you start learning Japanese you learn the hiragana and katakana along with vocabulary and grammar, but if you’re teaching yourself you won’t often get much reading practice to combine all those skills together in a useful way. So how
I’ve talked previously about taking the JLPT but I felt like I was a bit vague when it came to beginners as there aren’t actually that many specific text books for the lower levels because there are plenty of others