Japanese Resources

A collection of Japanese learning resources meant to help you learn through immersion, see here for an explanation. A lot of these resources come from here as well as the TMW discord server's #resources-sharing channel.

If you are interested in contributing, make a pull request.

• Learning guides
• Hiragana and Katakana
• Anki and Yomitan
• Kanji
• Vocabulary
• Grammar
• Mining
• Immersion
• Listening
• Writing
• Output

Learning guides

This section is dedicated to Japanese learning guides. Start here unless you know what you're doing.

• Immersion-Based Japanese Learning - Frequently updated guide introducing everything you need in order to learn Japanese. Written by kuri.
• TMW's guide to learning Japanese - Fantastic guide that has helped thousands learn Japanese using immersion. Written by shoui.

Hiragana and Katakana

Hiragana and katakana (commonly called kana together) form two basic alphabets used in Japanese. You may or may not want to learn how to write them, but at the very least you will need to be able to recognize and read them.

• Memorizing the kana

  • Ved's kana learning game - The most complete kana learning game. Do this for a few days to learn kana.
  • DJT Kana - Same as above but slightly simpler. Made by the folks at DJT.
  • Tofugu's hiragana guide - Another approach to learning hiragana with mnemonics.

• Writing the kana

  • Takumi's hiragana writing guide - Learn how to write hiragana (if you want to).
  • Takumi's katakana writing guide - The same but for katakana.

Anki and Yomitan

These two tools form the backbone of the current immersion-based Japanese learning community. As such, they deserve a special section.

• Anki - A spaced-repetition system used to memorize things, mostly vocabulary.

  • Anki manual - The official docs for Anki. You are encouraged to read at least this. For an explanation of how FSRS (an important Anki algorithm) works, you can see this tutorial and FAQ.
  • Anki setup guide - A guide explaining how to setup Anki as well as what it is. Written by kuri.
  • Xelieu's Anki setup - Another setup guide for Anki. Written by Xelieu.

• Yomitan - A pop-up dictionary browser extension that lets you analyze words and grammar on the fly.

  • Yomitan setup guide - A guide explaining how to setup Yomitan as well as what it is. Written by kuri.
  • Xelieu's Yomitan setup - Another setup guide for Yomitan. Written by Xelieu.
  • Xelieu's Yomitan on Android setup - A setup guide for Yomitan on Android devices. Written by Xelieu.
  • Marv's dictionary collection - A collection of Yomitan dictionaries hosted by MarvNC.

• Miscellaneous

  • Anki Templates - A handy guide explaining Anki card formatting.
  • Marv's JP-Resources - Very handy collection of resources and tools written by MarvNC.
  • JPDB - A good alternative to Anki if you do not like it for some reason. If you decide to use JPDB, read this guide and consider using this and this.

Kanji

If you intend to do isolated kanji study, you can use the following resources. It is strongly suggested to skip straight to vocabulary and to come back here if really needed, except for the miscellaneous part which can be used rightaway.

• Mnemonics

  • RRTK450 - A shortened "recognition" version of RTK. Disclaimer: The stories were taken from a website and some of there are pretty offensive.
  • Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course - An arguably better version of Remembering the Kanji. Has an accompanying Anki deck

• Phonetics

  • Usagichan Kanji Phonetics - An Anki deck meant to help you learn phonetic radicals.
  • Kanji Code - A kanji phonetics book based on the PhD dissertation of the author. There is a companion Anki deck.

• Miscellaneous

  • Kuuube Kanji Grid - A very useful add-on that lets you see how many kanji you've learned in Anki.
  • Kanji Schizo - This Python script lets you find new kanji in .epub or subtitle files.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary refers to words, not kanji directly. Words are usually made up of kanji and one shouldn't confuse the two. As it is recommended to do a mining deck after learning basic vocabulary, there's only a single recommended resource.

• Kaishi 1.5k - The recommended beginner vocabulary Anki deck. Latest release found here and here.

Grammar

Grammar is the glue that holds together words in Japanese.

• Guides

  • Sakubi - A short and to the point grammar guide introducing the basics.
  • IMABI - Extremely comprehensive look at Japanese grammar, from the basics all the way to Classical Japanese.
  • Tae Kim - A slightly older guide that introduces grammar in a casual manner.

• Anki decks

  • DOJG deck - Based on the famous Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series. See this and this also.
  • NihongoKyoshi deck - Monolingual deck based on NihongoKyoshi. See https://github.com/aiko-tanaka/Grammar-Dictionaries.
  • Bunpro deck - An anki deck made from Bunpro, a popular grammar app.

• YouTube videos

  • Japanese Ammo with Misa - A popular channel explaining basic grammar points.
  • Game Gengo - Another channel explaining Japanese grammar but through video games.
  • Cure Dolly - A popular series of video on Japanese grammar. Transcript here.

• Monolingual resources

  • 初級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック - Fantastic Japanese book on Japanese grammar. Follow-up here.
  • 庭三郎の現代日本語文法概説 - Another great grammar guide written in Japanese.

Mining

Mining is the process of finding new words in immersion, usually by adding them to Anki via Yomitan.

• Mining setups

  • Mining setup guide - A guide to mining along with setups for most common forms of media. Written by kuri.
  • Xelieu's mining setup - Another setup mining guide. Written by Xelieu.

• Mining templates

  • jp-mining-note - A popular notetype for mining. Very feature-rich. Originally made by aquafina, now maintained by arbyste.
  • JP-study - A collection of templates including a mining template. Made by rudnam.
  • Crop Theft - A more minimalistic but complete mining notetype. Made by kuuube.

• Logging immersion

  • Xelieu's immersion spreadsheet - A spreadsheet made to log your immersion. Made by Xelieu.
  • ねむい's anime logging spreadsheet - A spreadsheet made by ねむい to log your anime immersion.
  • HoriSan - A feature-full Discord bot to log your immersion. Written by Flare.

Immersion

Immersion is the main tool we use to learn the language. See the mining section for an explanation on how to use some of these tools.

• Large frameworks

  • ッツreader - An online book reader supporting Yomitan to help you read (light) novels.
  • asbplayer - A browser-based media player to allow you to use Yomitan on subtitle files for anime and the like.
  • Memento - An mpv-based media player meant to help you learn Japanese.
  • mokuro - An OCR made to turn manga into Yomitan-able files. You can also read from the reader or the catalog.
  • Agent - A text hooker to help you use Yomitan with video games.
  • YomiNinja - A yomitan-compatible OCR to help you extract text from games and the like.
  • JL - A program that grabs text from the clipboard or a websocket, allowing you to easily mine visual novels and the like.
  • Textractor - A text hooker to help you use Yomitan with visual novels. Make sure to get the alpha version by following this.
  • Jidoujisho - An immersion framework for mobile devices.

• Tools

  • mpvacious - A script for mpv made to help you create Anki cards from video with subtitles.
  • Anacreon's mpv script - Another popular script for mpv to create Anki cards from anime.
  • SubPlz - A subtitle manager to generate, sync and manage subtitle files. Written by KanjiEater.
  • mpv-websocket - A tool to open a websocket from mpv to send subtitles to.
  • jimaku.cc - A website subtitles for anime.
  • Renji's texthooker-ui - A great texthooker page using websockets.
  • exSTATic - A texthooker page complete with graphs and statistics. Uses websockets.
  • ShareX - Fully-featured screen recording suite that is useful for screenshots and audio recording.

• Tips and tricks

  • Thoughts on immersion - A collection of thoughts on immersion to help people get into it. Written by kuri.
  • How to immerse - A discussion on immersion and how best to do it. Written by shoui.

• Recommendations

  • Japanese media recommendations - A Japanese media recommendation spreadsheet listing various along with a difficulty description. Managed by kuri.
  • Japanese recs - A page listing media recommendations. Written by kuri.
  • LearnNatively - Big collection of Japanese media graded by difficulty. Can also be used for logging immersion.

Listening

Listening is an important component of Japanese immersion.

• Tools

  • Condenser - A tool to make condensed audio from your Japanese immersion. Useful if you want to do passive immersion.
  • Podcast Republic - After changing your location to Japan, you can access a last catalog of Japanese podcasts.
  • SpoonCast - A variety of listening content.
  • Numbers - A tool made to help you recognize and learn numbers in Japanese.
  • Whisper - An AI tool made to generate subtitles and transcriptions. Check out this guide for a simple setup.

• Pitch accent

  • Strategies for Acquiring Pitch Accent in Japanese - A great introduction to Japanese pitch accent.
  • NotOrange's notes on pitch - NotOrange's notes on Japanese pitch accent.
  • xythh's resources - A collection of resources on learning Japanese pitch accent. Made by xythh.
  • Yudai Sensei - Native Japanese discussing pitch accent and why it matters.
  • Dogen - Popular YouTuber often discussing pitch accent.

Writing

Physically writing kanji is something you may or may not be interested in. Either way, it is suggested you already be somewhat proficient in reading first before you attempt to learn how to write kanji.

• Kanken deck - The recommended way to learn how to write kanji after you know how to read decently well.
• Kankenbros - The place to look at if you're interested in passing the 漢字検定, 'kanji kentei'.
• Basic Kanji Book 1 - If you really insist on using a textbook, this is good.
• Genki-Yoshi - Software to automatically create 原稿用紙 to practice writing kana and kanji.

Output

Output is concerned with producing Japanese. It's about speaking and writing (not necessarily literally) Japanese.

• Learning to output - A guide on output to help you get started. Written by Morg.
• English-Japanese Language Exchange - A popular Discord server for both Japanese-speaking and English-speaking people looking to converse.
• Slowly - A useful app to make Japanese-speaking penpals.
• HelloTalk - A popular language exchange app.
• italki - A website meant to connect you with language tutors, potentially helping you with output.