Japanese Language Student's Handbook

A collection of resources for Japanese language students.

Online Dictionaries

Yahoo!辞書
http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/
A Japanese Language 「国語辞書」, English-Japanese 「英和辞書」 and Japanese-English 「和英辞書」 dictionary and Thesaurus 「類語辞書」. All in one place.
Denshi Jisho
http://jisho.org/
Denshi Jisho is an easy-to-use and powerful online Japanese dictionary. It lets you find words, kanji and example sentences by searching in many ways. Based on EDICT. iPhone interface.
Jim Breen's WWWJDIC
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C
Handwritten Kanji Recognition
http://kanji.sljfaq.org/draw.html
An online handwritten kanji recognition tool linking to WWWJDIC. Useful if you can't have Microsoft's IME Pad.
英辞郎
http://www.alc.co.jp/
A Japanese Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary.
diku
http://azalae.com/diku/
A very simple Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary based on EDICT.

WaKan
http://wakan.manga.cz/
WaKan is a software for Windows. It features a character dictionary, a word dictionary, a text editor, a vocabulary management utility, many printing options (character flashcards, vocabulary lists, text including furigana), and a text translation tool. It will allow you to read real Japanese or Chinese text with minimum knowledge of characters and vocabulary.
Anki
http://ichi2.net/anki/
Anki is a free spaced repetition Open Source system (SRS) for Windows, Mac, Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora. It helps you remember things by intelligently scheduling flashcards. Anki lets you study on your own computer, online, on your cell phone or other portable devices like an iPod touch or Zaurus. Other features include: synchronization across multiple computers, shared decks, flexible fact/card model that allows you to generate multiple views of information, fully supported audio and images.
Tagaini Jisho
http://www.tagaini.net/
Tagaini Jisho is a free, open-source Japanese dictionary and kanji lookup tool that is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux. It allows you to quickly search for entries and mark those that you wish to study, along with tags and personal notes. It also let you train entries you are studying and follows your progression in remembering them. Finally, it makes it easy to review entries you did not remember by listing them on screen or printing them on a small booklet. Feature complete stroke order animations for more than 6000 kanji.

The JLPT Study Page
http://www.jlptstudy.com/
A compendium of kanji, vocabulary, expressions and grammar required for the JLPT Level 4, 3 and 2.
Tae Kim's Japanese Guide to Japanese Grammar
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/
This site explains Japanese grammar in a systematic step-by-step process for those who want to learn Japanese grammar in a rational, intuitive way that makes sense in Japanese. The explanations are focused on how to make sense of the grammar not from English but from a Japanese point of view.
A Logical Japanese Grammar
http://homepage3.nifty.com/jgrammar/
A detailed list of articles showing simple patterns and describing the logical Japanese grammar.
About.com: Japanese Grammar
http://japanese.about.com/od/grammarlessons/Japanese_Grammar_Expressions_Lessons.htm
JapanesePod101.com
http://www.japanesepod101.com/
A learning system with short audio podcast lessons.
Charles Kelly's Online Japanese Language Study Materials
http://www.manythings.org/japanese/
Free-to-use online materials developed to help study Japanese. Japanese-English, Kanji and Kana Quizzes. Four character idioms, Japanese signs and flashcards for learning Kanji.
252 Japanese Language Books
http://www.trussel.com/jap/jbooks01.htm
An illustrated list of various Japanese Language books for study, reference, amusement. Large cover scans, sample pages, introductory sections. Indexed by title, author, publisher, type.

Kanji-lish
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7208
Kanjilish is a Firefox add-on that allows you to practice Japanese kanji while you read English (or other languages). It helps you learn the meaning of kanji. What the program does is simple. It replaces the first letter of a word with a kanji of similar meaning. For example, the word read might appear as 読ead.
Read The Kanji
http://readthekanji.com/

Kanji Converter
http://nihongo.j-talk.com/parser/
Convert Kanji(漢字) and Websites to Romaji or Hiragana (with translation, too). A resource for studying Japanese and kanji, & improving vocabulary. With most nihongo, the translator has an accuracy rate of about 99.5%.
rikaichan
http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/
A popup Japanese-English/German/French/Russian dictionary extension for Firefox. Just hover the mouse on top of a Japanese word to see its definition and detailed kanji view. Here's a flash video (9Mb) showing rikaichan's features.
Google Translate
http://translate.google.com/
Paste some text or a web address and get an automatic translation. Get translations with a single click using this bookmarklet.
myGengo
http://mygengo.com/
A simple human translation service with three translation levels varying in quality and pricing.
Rikai
http://www.rikai.com/
Enter a web-address or paste some text then move the mouse over any Japanese word to see the reading and definition.
POPjisyo.com
http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx
Similar do Rikai.
Furiganizer
http://www.furiganizer.com/
Copy & paste some Japanese text and furigana will appear above all Kanji. Klick on one of them and you will see its translation.

WAZU JAPAN's Gallery of Unicode Fonts
http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html
A collection of free Unicode 2-byte Japanese fonts with samples and direct download links. A variety of fonts including classic, hand-written, standard, brushed, outlined, etc. font types.
Japanese Fonts
http://www.geocities.jp/ep3797/japanese_fonts.html
Gallery of different font types hosted on Japanese websites. With detailed download instructions.
10 Japanese Typography Websites & Free Downloads
http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/6-japanese-typography-websites-free-downloads/
A blog entry listing top Japanese Typography links.
Kanji Stroke Order Font
http://sites.google.com/site/nihilistorguk/
A font with stroke order written onto every kanji.

Four-Character Idiomatic Compounds
http://home.earthlink.net/~4jword/index3.htm
Approximately 3,400 Japanese Four-Character Idiomatic Compounds 「四字熟語」 along with their English meanings. The words are arranged in the order of the kana syllabary.
Japanese Emoticons Dictionary
http://club.pep.ne.jp/~hiroette/en/facemarks/body.html
A Japanese emoticon dictionary.
Man'yoshu Best 100 - 万葉集ベスト１００
http://home.earthlink.net/~khaitani1/manyoshu.htm
On hundred poems from the earliest extant collection of Japanese poetry — Man'yōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) compiled by Kanji Haitani. Featuring brief explanations and literal translations in both modern Japanese and English.
Live365 Online Radio Broadcasts in Japanese
http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?genre=search&searchdesc=japanese
A directory of free online audio broadcasts in Japanese.
Man'yōshū
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/index.html
Full text of Japanese poetry collection — Man'yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) from the 7th century.
sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/afaq.html
A list of questions and answers about the Japanese language which have often cropped up in the Usenet newsgroup sci.lang.japan

If you know of any useful website missing here please recommend it to bober@tangorin.com.