Here's a list of the resources I use/have used to study Japanese and my thoughts on them. Listed in the order that I first used them.
Japanese from Zero! Book 1 (George Trombley and Yukari Takenaka)
Pros:
- Takes you through hiragana gradually.
- Doubles up as a workbook to reinforce learning.
- Teaches in a way that you will remember.
Cons:
- I found the learning rate too slow. Not many sentence constructions were introduced and I eventually got bored of it.
- Too much emphasis on polite form -we need to learn the plain form, too!
- I would have preferred to learn how to construct verbs earlier on. Unfortunately, that comes towards the end of the book, and then they only teach you godan verbs (i.e. -u verbs) conjugated to polite present tense, so I was under the false impression that 見る (miru) would actually conjugate to 見ります (mirimasu), because they didn't explain -ru verbs at all (or indeed acknowledge there were two groups of verbs).
- Goes into numbers almost straight away. You are just presented with a long list and told to memorise them. Hardly a good way to learn.
- Not really a con, but... My Japanese friend was quite offended and more than slightly baffled at the part that said hiragana was invented because women were thought to be too stupid to learn kanji. She said she had no idea where they got that idea from. To be honest, I've heard that belief be both confirmed and refuted, so who knows.
Overall:
I found it too slow (I'm the type of person who would rather launch straight into the grammar) and of limited use. Also, at £15+ per book, you're gonna be shelling out a lot. Still, if you are the type of person who prefers a more gentle learning experience, this may be just the series for you.
Let's Learn Kanji (Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura and Joyce Mitamura)
Pros:
- Goes through all the radicals systematically to make your kanji study more efficient.
- Provides space to practise.
- Covers common kanji.
Cons:
- Very few stroke orders are (probably?) incorrect. I have found 2 so far: risshin-ben (as in 性) and kanarazu (必) have stroke orders different from any other source I've seen. Naru (成る) is also wrong. In any case, 3 out of a few hundred isn't too bad. I only found these out when Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun kept marking me wrong, so I cross-checked it with Akebi and Obenkyou, and the book was wrong.
- Organises kanji by stroke number. One the one hand, this makes things easier to look up, on the other hand, it makes things harder if you are studying by Jouyou level, because many jouyou kanji are not listed on the main kanji learning pages, and are written under the heading of one of its components (e.g. 学 is a Jouyou level 1 kanji, but not listed under its own heading). This means you are missing out on vocabulary you should be picking up at the early stages.
- he test sentences, where you have to write the furigana, don't make sense. What I mean is, the kanji they ask you to transliterate are not even the kanji you just learned. It seems they want you to learn all the complex example kanji you saw when learning the radicals and components. This is counter-intuitive.
Overall:
I do really like this book. Despite its failings, this is the only learning reference I have that actually teaches radicals and components BEFORE learning actual kanji. It makes things a heck of a lot easier. It is a bit pricey at about £16, but you get your money's worth and it also doubles up as a great sketchbook (!).
Barron's Japanese Grammar
Pros:
- Goes through essential grammar systematically and thoroughly.
- Pocket-sized and good price.
- Good layout and presentation
Cons:
- Entirely in romaji. Very annoying for those of us who have already progressed to kanji.
- Like many other books, neglects the plain form a lot. As for colloquial speech, forget it.
- The index is just ridiculous. How hard would it have been to include, you know, the PAGE NUMBERS? I use the index to find the page I want, not the freaking chapter. That's what contents pages are for!
Overall:
A nice little book and you get a lot for the price. The romaji is annoying, but there is just enough space to write the kana and kanji next to/underneath. Again, too much emphasis on polite forms, but that is typical for mainstream textbooks. You'll learn a lot of grammar quickly with this.
zKanji (zkanji.sourceforge.net)
Pros:
- One-stop reference for kanji and vocabulary.
- Handwriting recognition is pretty reliable. Handwritten input also makes it really easy to look up kanji that you don't know the readings of.
- Shows stroke order, similar and related kanji.
- Type in a conjugated verb/adjective and it will pull up the dictionary form.
- You can compile lists and set up tests to aid your learning.
- It's free.
Cons:
I really don't think there are any.
Overall:
It's a free dictionary and learning tool in one. It even includes colloquial terms. Get this program. Now.
正しい漢字書き取りくん (Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-Kun), Nintendo DS
Pros:
- Teaches all the kanji by Jouyou level.
- Has both a learning mode and a testing mode.
- Teaches and enforces correct stroke order.
- Grades how well you write the kanji, as well as getting the stroke order right.
Cons:
- It's written for a Japanese audience, so you're going to have to do a lot of fiddling around to work out what's what.
- Readings are written on a separate menu from the kanji practice page, which makes things a bit longer. The reading should be on the same screen.
- Tests miss out some of the readings, so when you come across them in later levels, you may not recognise them, since they weren't drummed into you.
Overall:
A bit of button bashing and it doesn't take too long to work out how it works. I won't forget the feeling of triumph when I got 100% for the first time in Jouyou 1. A good learning tool if you know where to get it.
My Japanese Coach, Nintendo DS
Pros: - Good for picking up vocabulary -- this game finally taught me numbers and days of the week.
Cons:
- Stroke order is totally messed up. There is no excuse for the stupid mistakes made in hiragana and katakana stroke order. And how on Earth can they think yama (山) is written with 4 strokes? How hard would it have been for them to get even one native speaker to playtest this? Not only is incorrect stroke order taught, it is often enforced. (For lulz, please look up what they have done with katakana ワ.) Whether you think stroke order is important or not is irrelevant. Fact is, there IS a correct stroke order, and this game should teach this correct stroke order. Apparently, even on the iPhone re-release, these mistakes were not corrected. This is seriously sloppy work on their part.
- Needs proofreading: at one point, the script confuses the English word "to" with hiragana と. Really?
- Teaching of grammar is patchy and not reinforced with the games, which mostly concentrate on vocabulary.
- Speaking of vocabulary, you'd think the most common words would be introduced first, but they actually bring in some really obscure words early on.
- Do people really use the word "otaku" for "you" when being polite? From what I've heard, this is considered very old fashioned and only used by old ladies. Every other source I've seen says to leave out the pronoun altogether if it can be helped, and to use [name]-san, or "anata", when it can't.
Overall:
This is like Peggyzonepaycrap-level stuff. There is no excuse for such shoddy work. The freeware creators who program out of love make much higher quality programs than this. Avoid.
Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar
Pros:
- Available in printed book form for purchase, or free at guidetojapanese.org. Website also has practice questions, though the purchased book does not.
- Goes through all the essential grammar in an easy-to-understand way.
- Acknowledges that many of us want to learn and use the plain form finally!
- Explains many uses that are left out of textbooks including colloquial speech.
- Uses kana and kanji instead of romaji.
Cons:
- A few things are left out (e.g. the "regrettable" passive isn't covered in the book).
- Lessons not as systematically presented as they are in the Barron's guide (e.g. one chapter will deal with verbs, then you switch to particles, then adjectives, then verbs again, etc).
- It's a big book.
Overall:
Whether you buy the book, print out the free pdf e-book or use the web pages, you'll gain a new understanding of the way Japanese works — and learn a lot of the things conventional textbooks think you don't need to learn. Definitely worth your while.
Obenkyo
Pros:
- Free app.
- You can organise kanji by either JLPT level or Jouyou level.
- Shows meaning, readings, stroke order and related vocabulary for each kanji.
- Various tests for kana, kanji, particles and vocabulary. Tests your ability to both write and recognise. Tests are also customisable, so you can test how well you know meanings or readings, or both.
- As an added bonus, it also includes Tae Kim's grammar guide.
Cons:
- Handwriting recognition isn't reliable. But incorrectly marked answers can be overridden.
- Not so much in the way of learning. Something like Tadashii's practice mode would be nice.
- The white colour scheme tends to crash the app.
Overall:
Get iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttt!
Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kaiteiban, Nintendo DS
Pros:
- I've only started using this, but I like that it covers the Jouyou kanji in bite-size chunks, unlike Tadashii, which wants you to learn the whole level in one go.
- Tests some of the readings that Tadashii leaves out (I'd forgotten that 目 is also read as モク).
Cons:
- Like Tadashii, this is aimed at a Japanese audience.
- Since the point of this game is to learn kanji, it makes no sense that all the menus are full of kanji. Unlike Tadashii, it does not even write the furigana over it. It took a lot longer to figure out what all the menu buttons did than it did with Tadashii.
- Handwriting recognition isn't as good as Tadashii. No matter how carefully I write 円, for example, it just will not recognise it 9/10 times. Sometimes, I just give up.
Overall:
I haven't used this much, but I've found it a nice learning aid -- as soon as I could figure out how to use it. I like the smaller learning chunks, although I find Tadashii more intuitive.
Maggie-Sensei (http://maggiesensei.com/)
Pros:
- Lots of grammar, with plenty of examples.
- Covers aspects that Tae Kim's guide leaves out.
- Very helpful webmaster.
- For those who don't like kanji, romaji reading is given underneath each example sentence.
- マギー先生は、ごっつかわいいな?
Cons:
- Site design is still a little bit 90s, with all the shinies and animated gifs. Can be a bit distracting.
Overall:
I prefer books, so I don't use this as often as I could, but what I have learnt has been very useful. And Yukari-san was really helpful explaining the use of じゃなきゃ so I finally understand it! If Yukari-san would only make a dead tree version of this book, my library would be complete!
Duolingo (http://www.duolingo.com)
Pros:
- Free.
- Web version and app version.
- Good for revision and practice.
- I picked up vocabulary, including the dreaded counters.
Cons:
- Not enough kanji, which in some exercises, makes it hard to read.
- Tooltips aren't always accurate.
- Misses out a lot of info.
- Getting quite begware.
- Uses text-to-speech, which sometimes gets it wrong. No tips and notes on the app version, leaving many people baffled as to what's going on.
- Focuses exclusively on the polite form, and then out of the blue brings in slangy sentences and expects learners to know why everything's suddenly different.
- The new crown system is a load of nansensu.
- Doesn't often accept alternative answers (example: plain form), although you can report these and alternative answers are later added. This is improving as more people submit other answers.
- Read my full rant so I can stop here.
Overall:
It's still a new course, so perhaps they will improve with time. My biggest problem with the program now is the new system, which, for me anyway, makes it less effective as a learning tool, and more suited to be a revision tool.
Akebi
Pros:
- Free Japanese dictionary app.
- Handwriting recognition, plus search for kanji by radicals and components.
- Shows plenty of example sentences for looked-up words.
- Includes non-standard dialects (you will find あらへん here!)
Cons:
- Handwriting section is too small, and doesn't recognise strokes near the borders.
- Doesn't list alternative kanji all the time, ie when typing in hayai, it lists 早い but not 速い.
- Sometimes the words given in the example sentences are a homophone.
Overall:
Despite its failings, it's a nice little tool, and a great use for looking up kanji. Recommended.
Memrise (http://www.memrise.com)
Pros:
Free (although some features are reserved for paid membership).- Uses human voices, not text-to-speech. Actually, the male speaker has a very relaxing voice!
- Has video recordings of phrases, so you can hear it spoken in a wider range of voices.
Cons:
- Launches straight into kanji even before you've finished hiragana. This is a bad move, as it's easier to remember the kanji of words you've already learned. I was thrown by all these names being thrown at me in kanji, and I've been studying for over 6 years! A complete beginner would be stumped; you can't expect a beginner to be able to recognise all those characters, plus why would you suddenly throw 翔さん and 理子さん and 鈴木さん into a beginner's course? Makes no sense. Give learners the chance to learn the kana before you launch into kanji, or even teach them the radicals and components first! It's overload, and probably puts many people off.
- Very strict in what answers it accepts, it has to be the exact same or it's marked as a weak point. For example, "is sad" can be written as 悲しい or 悲しんでいます, the first being a verbal adjective, the latter being a pure verb form, but Memrise will only accept the latter. Also, missing out a question mark or exclamation mark also counts as "you don't know this word" (this applies less to Japanese, since the question mark is a か).
- Following on from this, it requires sentences starting with "I" to have that 私は in them, but in reality, subject pronouns are often left out. This will leave speech sounding unnatural.
- As mentioned, most features are locked for paying members. Having said that, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than Duo (*cough cough* £72 per year vs £45 (or £22.50 if you get it during the half price offer)). Plus you get a lot more for your money on Memrise than Duo. Personally, I can do without.
- I've only done the beginner exercises, but so far I feel the progress is very slow, I don't think it's even taught the basic structure "X wa Y desu". The progress seems even slower than Japanese from Zero.
- No longer free. For some reason, I still have access to the lessons, but I believe anyone who signed up after the cut-off date can only access a very limited demo. It's quite scammy to list it as a free app, when 99% of the content is behind a paywall for new users.
Overall:
I'm kinda mixed about this one. For Japanese, I'm finding it slow and counter-intuitive, but for European Portuguese (Duo only teaches Brazilian, hence why I reinstalled Memrise) I'm really liking it. The lessons are exactly the same, and maybe that's the problem. They are two very different languages, and should be taught differently.
Drops (https://languagedrops.com/)
Pros:
- A fun way to learn vocabulary and no having to use the keyboard function.
- Free, although some features are locked for paying members.
- Uses real people for the audio (make sure you have the latest version for the Japanese audio). Over 2000 words, grouped by category.
- Can choose between romaji, kana and kanji.
- You can maintain a streak in order to get bonuses to your time limit.
- You can repeat the same lessons over and over to revise them, plus a few other words from other lessons will be thrown in.
- You can choose to disable words you already know.
- Limited to 5 mins every 10 hours (or 5 hours if you use an old version and don't log in for some reason), unless you buy membership. Although as mentioned, you can go up to 10 minutes every 5 days if you use it every day.
Tough word practice and list of learned words locked.These are now unlocked for free accounts.- Many mistakes. You'll "learn" a word, only to find out a few months later that it was wrong (In EU Portuguese, the word they give for "cuddly toy" means "stuffed animal" the taxidermy sense! Words are frequently revised to fix them, but sometimes a correct word will be "fixed" with a wrong word!
- Punishes long term users. My nephew installed it on another phone, and played without logging in. He had to wait only 5 hours between sessions, and had a "Daily Mix" feature, which picked two random mixes of words. So I did a clean install and I got the same new features and 5 hour wait, but as soon as I logged in, I went back to 10 hours and the Daily Mix vanished. I reinstalled it without logging in, and kept the shorter wait and Daily Mix. If you want the 5 hour wait, hunt down v35.5.1.
- The latest version (v35.91.4) actually doesn't save your progress without Internet. I've used my 5 mins, exited, loaded it straight back up and all the progress from that session went. The plus side is that your timer resets too, so theoretically, you could exploit this bug to get infinite time, as long as you don't mind it resetting between sessions. The problem occurs when playing without Internet. I also found another glitch that freezes the timer, so I actually got to play until I was fed up. It happened when I minimised the window. After bringing it back up again, the timer went so slowly, it took about a minute to count down by 1 second. I haven't been ablo to replicate this though.
Overall:
Since it's free, I won't complain about the time limit. It's a great little app, and I'm picking up a lot of vocabulary, and being able to repeat lessons over and over means I can keep the words fresh in my mind. I highly recommend this app!
Kanji Tree
Pros:
- Free app.
- Tests on readings, writing and meaning.
- Grades how well you write each kanji, to help improve your handwriting.
Cons:
Is there a learning mode or only a testing mode?
Overall:
I've not used this much, but it's okay, I guess.
BONUS - Rikai-chan and family
This is a Firefox addon that pulls up the reading and meanings of kanji when you hover over them. Get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rikaichan/
That's it for now! I hope my reviews have been useful to you!