Learning Japanese is a goal that many people have set before me. I have to be honest and mention that I am not a very serious student, but I enjoy practicing the kanji and expanding my vocabulary. The language is very interesting and it intrigues me.
Tools that I use
- To train my understanding of kana: Kana Trainer.
- To memorize vocabulary and kanji, I use flashcards and have just started using Mnemosyne(*) with the Genki I-deck for starters.
- For grammar lessons, I rely on the Tae Kim's Guide.
- And Mahou or WWWJDIC for looking up kanji
Other online resources include NihongoUp, About.com
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(*) Mnemosyne is easy to install under Debian-based Linuxes:
sudo apt-get install mnemosyne (30MB) and off you go! (**) On January 27, 2011, Cerego Japan, Inc. announced the planned closure of the Smart.fm free service for March 31, 2011. The Smart.fm service would be replaced with a paid subscription-based language learning site, iKnow! [1, 2]
This is extremely regrettable as the open community from Smart.fm was extremely stimulating and helpful for learning any new language (or other subjects). Edit: I am now trying Livemocha
If some of the Kanji look like a square (囗) in Mnemosyne, you should change the Q&A font to WenQuanYi Zen Hei.
ReplyDeleteGo to "Settings", "Configure Mnemosyne" and click on "Set Q/A font" where you can scroll down to WenQuanYi Zen Hei.
If that doesn't help, you can install the Cyberbit-font:
download cyberbit.tff (font).
Fire up a terminal and give the following commands:
unzip Cyberbit.ZIP
sudo cp Cyberbit.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype
cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype
sudo chown root:root *.ttf
sudo mkfontscale
sudo mkfontdir
sudo fc-cache -fv
sudo xset fp rehash
Sources: 1, 2. 3
I just found out about Charles Kelly's Web-based Japanese Language Study Materials and checking it out right now!
ReplyDeleteQuia also has some simple online games to study Japanese
ReplyDeleteIn case you don t know all the kanji yet by watching the 10minutes-video, I d suggest this method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji, you can download part of the book: http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RK4/RK%201_sample.pdf For me it s the only method that works.
ReplyDeleteHello Susanne,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the useful links!
Let me make them clickable for you, Remembering the Kanji:
* Wikipedia
* Downloadable PDF sample