Resources – Page 2

11 Chrome extensions all language self-learners need to know about

March 21, 2016 by lingualift

We spend more and more time on the internet, and browser add-ons give us a unique opportunity to immerse ourself in foreign languages without getting up from the computer.

Below is our selection of the best Chrome extensions that let you learn languages as you browse.

Language Immersion for Chrome

Language Immersion for Chrome replaces random words (novice mode) and phrases (fluent mode) in pages you visit with Google translations in your target language. The translations aren’t always accurate (for example, they might use the wrong gender or register), but if you make sure to double-check what you learn, the tool is a great way to build up your vocabulary.

Readlang

Once you get a grasp of the basics, you should consider graduating to content written in your target language. To get get the full educational benefit of native material, use Readlang to mark down new words as you proceed through the texts. Readlang makes it super easy to create your own library of texts you come across around the internet, lookup translations, highlights words based on how well you know them, review them through spaced repetition, and track your progress. Read our full review of Readlang.

Flewent

Looking for some unpredictability in language learning? Flewent is an extension that will translate a specified percentage of words on any site into a language of your choice. Set the parameters once and watch how your regular trips to Wikipedia change into a language learning experience. The dictionary function will remember the translated words from each page, so you can always refer to the list to remind yourself what you have learned.

And if you want to give back to the community you can also edit the translations when you spot inaccuracies.

Speed Learning

This simple idea for a tool will save you a surprising amount of time. If you ever tried to create vocab lists or reference sheets you know how much time and copy-pasting it can take. Speed Learning allows you to accelerate the process and automatically add the vocabulary treasures of the web straight to a Google spreadsheet. The words can be saved with the sentence they appear in so you will never lose the context they appeared in.

A reference spreadsheet is handy for a review on the go or, for example, if you preparing foreign language classes.

Google Dictionary

You thought you hated pop-ups? Google Dictionary may change your mind! This extension provides translations and definitions of the words you highlight. If you feel your language proficiency reached a higher level why not skip the translation and rely on the foreign language definition? The dictionary supports 12 languages including Japanese, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese and will store the history of your lookups for future studying and revision.

Google Input

When you start learning a language using a different writing system, typing on a new keyboard layout can be an unnecessary challenge which can really discourage and slow you down. Although you should master a native layout eventually, Google Input tools can be a great tool to get you going using the standard QWERTY layout.

Lingua.ly

Do you remember Lingua.ly from our list of top language earning resources? They also have a browser extension which allows you to read the web similarly to Readlang making every page a source of new vocabulary. Clicking on a word will not only provide you with the definition, but also grammatical information and audio. If you fear you’ll forget the words, worry not as Lingua.ly also automatically creates flashcards with images and audio—you can later revise them on the web app.

The extension is integrated with the web app where you can revise your flashcard and read native content that includes the words you have looked up most recently. You can also opt in to reminders to make sure you regularly review the vocab you’ve accumulated.

myVocabu

Bored of flashcards? MyVocabu is another translation add on, supporting over 20 languages and allowing to store a list of translated items. You can add your own pictures to represent the words you have learned and edit the appearance of the pop up and the language pairs. Apart from simply storing the vocabulary the extension also offers different exercises to practice the words—having a bit of a variation in the flashcard theme is very refreshing and makes revision much less monotonous! Out of more exciting workouts there is a word-builder and pronunciation practice.

You can also translate longer fragments of the text by pasting it in a little window that opens upon clicking the extension symbol on the Chrome toolbar.

Foreign Language Pad

Thats an extension equivalent of a superfood smoothie with all the features included in one window. Foreign Language Pad is designed to help users write native sounding sentences whether on chat, emailing with native speakers or commenting on blog posts.

A pop up window of FLP includes the basics: a dictionary to look up single words and machine translation service to help with creating full sentences. However, that’s not the end. How often is it that the machine translated sentence ends up sounding not entirely “native”? despite Google’s efforts, still quite often. Foreign Language Pad allows you to search the internet for the frequency of usage of the phrase you have written or translated so you can make sure it is used by others. On top of that, you can also listen to the sentences you have written.

The system of abbreviations and keyboard shortcuts in this takes a few moments to get used to and may be tricky to figure for Mac users. Nevertheless, after overcoming these little obstacles, it’s a nice tool.

Facebook Translate

What it says on the tin! We all have the automatic Bing translate into the browser’s language on Facebook. The “translate” button pops up by the statuses of our foreign (or foreign language practicing) friends and tempts us with a one click solution to deciphering their night musings. Facebook Translate allows you to chose a different language into which you may want to translate the Facebook posts. If you’re learning Japanese why not set it to Japanese and see how that joke of your friend Joe would sound in Japanese? Of course, the translations are created by Google translate so don’t expect poetic results, but this is yet another way to turn your social media feed into a learning experience.

Verbs Trainer

Helps you train the conjugation of English and German verbs. The verbs with their three grammatical forms will randomly pop up on the chosen part of the screen while you’re browsing the web. It can be pretty surprising and distracting, but at the same time will prepare you for the fast pace of a real life conversation where you have to recall the past participle to complete your masterfully created sentence.

It’s an interesting idea for verbs’ learning, although it could probably be expanded by adding verbs in more languages—currently there are only two with translations into five— and improved upon by making it a bit less… annoying? Any developers here up for the challenge? 😉

Any other extensions we should add to this list? Give us a shout on Facebook or Twitter!

Social media – the new language learning app

January 28, 2016 by lingualift

It happens very often that we blame social media to be the cause of all our procrastination. Many people even see it as a menace.

There is perhaps some truth to it, especially when we spend time on Facebook during a family dinner or while being at a restaurant with our partner. It’s alarming that people demand constant stimulation and cannot refrain from going to Facebook or checking Twitter during a 20 second commercial break.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. These daily distractions can be turned into interesting tools of study on our quest of mastering languages.They can be a great supplement to your chosen langauge learning app.

This post is by Shubham Raut, an experienced language learner and internet explorer (pun unintended).

Social media was invented to help people socialise across cultures. It was designed to facilitate forming networks above and beyond local ones, helping people to connect based on interests, not solely by location. And when people of truly similar mindsets meet, beautiful things happen!

In this post I will walk you through different social media platforms and describe the ways I have used them while learning French, Russian and Esperanto. These are of course only my suggestions, but I hope they will inspire you to look at the social media platforms with a fresh eye. They can truly be just as valuable as any language learning app.

Before we start, I must say that you need to shed all your inhibitions. You must not be scared of ridicule or failure. Making mistakes and not repeating them is a definite sign of making progress!

For the purpose of ease of explanation, let’s say that we want to learn Japanese from scratch.

1. Facebook

Let’s start with the most common of all social media platforms. Our Facebook newsfeed shows us posts from all the pages we follow and the people we befriend.

The right choice of pages can thus change your newsfeed from being filled with cat videos and jokes to one that’s abundant with language learning material.

Type in Japanese in the search box. “Like” all the pages that show up, and join all the groups you can.

This small act drastically changes the look of your Facebook. There is an influx of language related posts on your feed. You meet like-minded people who are learning Japanese with you. You feel a part of something amazing. A language learning community that helps each other. Users keep posting things such as “Common Japanese slang expressions” or “Japanese foods you need to know”, many of which you may never come across in your regular learning.

More advanced learners can help us solve our small problems. Many of our doubts have already been solved in some groups. Also, because a lot of the messages will be in Japanese, you will be forced to beef up your vocabulary to understand them.

2. Whatsapp

Being the most popular instant messaging app, Whatsapp enjoys the distinction of having a lot of users worldwide. Some of the Facebook groups choose to have Whatsapp groups. I know, it sounds scary. Sharing your number with hundreds of strangers? That’s outrageous!

However, there is no need to worry. Many of these groups have strict rules regarding conduct. No insulting messages, no member can contact another without permission of the group, there are no stupid forwards.

Guilty members are expelled. What this shows is that language learning groups are usually no-nonsense communities with serious students. Your group might also have a “Spanish only” rule. This forces you to use Google Translator and type in your thoughts. If what you say is wrong, there are many people willing to correct you. Note your mistakes.

Whatsapp gives you the opportunity to have a tutor at hand.

Have a doubt? Ask it on the group or privately message a native speaker, if they don’t mind. Trust me, all your problems will get solved very quickly.

Note: A tool that works like Whatsapp, but is dedicated to finding exchange partners and has an inbuilt dictionary is the language learning app HelloTalk.

3. Group study

Being part of Facebook and Whatsapp groups does much more than only help you learn. It motivates you psychologically. When you go to a movie with your friends, the entire group seems to form a similar impression of the movie. You will either hate or love a movie depending on who you watch it with. This groupism extends to various walks of life.

When you surround yourself with like-minded people, all determined to study the same language, you feel driven to learn more. They help you keep on track with your progress.

This group study also does one important thing. It helps with the equalisation of knowledge. If your friend knows something you don’t, he’ll help you out with it. If you understood a grammar concept they didn’t, you can help them out. The entire group benefits from this kind of mutual learning!

4. Language exchange

This is a widespread concept in language learning where a person learning language X will help you with their native language, in exchange for language X that you speak fluently. Both parties benefit from this.

There are lots of sites and apps specifically designed to facilitate such language exchanges, but you can use your usual social networks just as well. You can find language exchange partners among your new Facebook friends or the above mentioned Whatsapp groups.

Apart from the obvious benefits of learning basic conversation phrases, getting corrections and practicing your skills, it serves another important task: Motivation.

Suppose you met Martina, a native Russian speaker. She wants to learn English for the purpose of higher education. You both start speaking about general topics such as place of living, work, age etc. What next? She seems to be a nice person and you would like to befriend her. But you don’t know how to talk about the amazing Russian music you happened to see on one of the Facebook groups! There is a kind of positive peer pressure to learn more, in order to keep the conversation going. Next time, when you meet say, Ivan, you will already know how to ask him about his favourite music!

We expand on the topic of motivation in our post The psychology of language learning apps: Motivation, memory and the mind.

Needless to say, check out our Facebook and Twitter feeds for daily language inspiration & let us know how you use social media for language learning!

10 best YouTube channels for learning Russian

January 26, 2016 by lingualift

So, you made the big decision. You will tackle Russian. This time for real. Or perhaps you have already been flirting with Russian for some time?

Either way, you know that at LinguaLift we advocate to mix different learning methods to avoid boredom and review the material in a variety of different contexts. Let’s face it, some days the perspective of reading a text book just doesn’t cut it. A recipe for those days is this list of 10 best YouTube channels for learning Russian.

If you’re after a more extensive list of Russian learning resources we’ve got you covered too.

1. Easy Languages – Russian

This very popular language learning channel would not be complete without a sub-channel dedicated to Russian. Short, 4-5 minute videos feature a native speaking presenter chatting with Russians on the streets of St. Petersburg. Topics include sayings, professions or more philosophical questions such as what makes you happy. It’s a great way to listen to different pronunciations, accents and top up your conversation vocabulary. The videos are fully in Russian, with Russian subtitles in Cyrillic, a transliteration in Latin alphabet and an English translation (yes, that’s a lot to fit on one subtitle).

2. Weekly Russian

Natalia teaches Russian in bite-sized lessons, slowly and calmly explaining all the concepts in videos under 10 minutes. Easy to follow and understand, the videos include a lot of text and explanations on the screen and are aimed at beginners. Natalia has a few sub-channels related to Russian culture, such as songs with Russian subtitles, or a channel dedicated to poetry.

3. Easy Russian

Now on for a bit of fun. This channel doesn’t exactly teach Russian, at least not in a structured way. There are no courses, each video is a self contained snippet where the really funny presenter explains some Russian grammar, and talks about different topics related to Russia, such as common stereotypes or how to pickle herring. Videos are all in Russian with English subtitles—see the above video about the alphabet to get a glimpse of her style.

4. RussianPod101

RussianPod101 is a video companion to the paid online course. 3-minute mini classes and separate playlists dedicated to the alphabet, vocabulary and listening practice, among others. Great mini classes, if you are ready to bear with constant pushes encouraging you to subscribe to the paid course on their site 😉

5. Fun Russian

Fun Russian is the youtube companion to the Fun Russian site. You may recognise it by bright colours and a lot of illustrations (we sometimes share them on LinguaLift’s Russian Facebook Page. Victoria, the author of the channel composed a very neat basic Russian course of 22 classes (to date). There are also separate playlists dedicated to words, grammar and, my favourite one, with slang and idioms. Each lesson has on-screen text, sample phrases (and often drawings) to help you grasp the concepts or vocabulary.

6. Russian With Passion

This is a playlist belonging to Antonia Rommaker’s channel dedicated to both English and Russian. Antonia has a casual yet to the point style of explaining Russian and has created exactly 100 YouTube lessons (to date) dealing with both grammar, vocabulary and some cultural insights. Videos are in English with helpful on-screen explanations.

7. Russian Mini Videos

This is not exactly a YouTube channel, but a great resource so we thought it must be included on the list. These videos are short scenes illustrating dialogues in public spaces such as doctor’s office, restaurant or pharmacy. Enacted by professional actors they not only teach you conversational language, but are also very funny. So, you can get a glimpse of both Russian language and Russian humour.

8. RU-LAND Virtual Russian Language Club

This channel aims to cater for the needs of students of both beginners, intermediate and upper intermediate students. Classes are short, performed in the “old-school” style of a teacher with a blackboard or the teacher talking to the camera with minimal props. The different level courses are composed of around 10-minute Russian lessons and there are separate playlists dedicated to grammar and pronunciation. The picture quality is not always perfect, but this doesn’t seem to deter the fans—the channel has over 3,400 subscribers.

9. Learn Russian

Video mini lessons created by a Russian news site RT. Some are really mini (20 seconds) introducing you to chosen Russian phrases, while others are very interesting 1-2 minute long street interviews where you can get acquainted with casual speech. Doesn’t seem to have been updated for a long time, but it does contain a fairly decent amount of material.

10. A treat for advanced learners… Max +100500

Maxim Golopolosov is allegedly one of the first Russian YouTube celebrities. His short episodes list and comment on viral internet videos and they may be short, but man, he doesn’t speak but shoots out words like a Kalashnikov! This channel is a typical vlog, in Russian for Russians, so this is reserved for advanced learners!

Any other Russian learning channels that we missed? Let us know on Twitter!

Make the web your personal dictionary: Readlang Review

January 4, 2016 by lingualift

Reading practice is one of the essential parts of language learning and vocabulary building. When we try to practice our reading we often struggle to find texts that are both interesting and that fit our current level. We are often forced to turn to adapted novels, or boring textbook reads waiting for the day in the undefined future when we will eventually be able to pick up a book and read it.

Being able to read native content early would be a bonus for learners on all levels and not only for those news-obsessed ones or literature fans (we know you’re out there!). There are a few tools on the market that offer an opportunity to access content written for and by native speakers and each of them has a slightly different offering.

This time we decided to review Readlang—a platform that, in the words of the creator, helps you learn the language by reading “whatever you like.” This is not a small claim to make, so let’s see how Readlang performs.

If you are a bookworm like me, try Blinkist. With LinguaLift you get a 20% discount!

What does Readlang do?

The basic premise of Readlang is to allow you to read any foreign language text providing an immediate translation of a word or phrase you don’t know. When you click an unknown word it magically appears in the language you set as your native one. Upon clicking it again, it reverts to the original. Let’s see an example: if I set my mother tongue to English and I’m learning Esperanto, here is how it would look like:

So, no more jumping to Google Translate to look up a word and no need to translate the whole text, if you are only looking for one phrase.

By clicking a world you also add it to your flashcard pile where you collect unknown words to review. You can read the texts on the Readlang platform, but if you install the Readlang extension you can do the same thing on any website! That’s pretty neat! Picture yourself as a word hunter, freely browsing the web and adding all the nice new words and phrases to your word-basket… The platform and extension work on all devices (phones, laptops, tablets), so you can read and collect your words on the go.

Features

Readlang covers an impressive number of over 50 languages, so whether you’re after Croatian, Catalan or good old Chinese, your needs will be met*. Some are still in beta version and because there are so many languages on offer we couldn’t test each and every one of them, so if you have any experiences – share with us and Readlang on Twitter!

Library

I said Readlang allows you to read all texts you want. But, where to get them from? The feature called Library gives you three options.

Upload

Firstly, you can upload your own texts. They have to be in a specified format (.txt or .epub) so if you have a pdf that you long to read, that won’t work. You can also upload Kindle books! Uploaded texts can be set as private or public, and the latter will make them available for the community to access.

Public texts

Well, this is exactly where you can find texts that others have made public. The great bit about it that those are not just all random texts. You can set search parameters that will display only the texts of chosen length, from genres you like and on your level. This is how it looks like:

So, here of course the variety of choice depends on the community. If no one added a 1500-word song then you won’t find it.

You can also use the search tab—it will search through titles and authors.

Websites

Here Readlang will automatically list a few most popular websites accessed by users who installed the the Readlang extension. If we trust the collective mind of other learners, those should be sites that have good content. Unsurprisingly what you will often find here are news sites and wikipedia.

All your texts are stored in the tab My Texts where you can mark them as “read”, “to read”, “completed” and “archived”—pretty handy, of you plan to add a lot of docs! When you start reading a text, the program will automatically track how far in you are and display a % of your progress.

Learning

I talked about the ways Readlang allows you to read texts. But this is only half of the promise of the platform. The other part relates to helping you learn a foreign language. Let’s look at the features dedicated specifically to that.

Flashcards

The main method Readlang uses to help you learn and test your knowledge are flashcards. The program uses a spaced repetition algorithm which calculates exactly when you are to review the words you have marked as new. The review is split into sessions with predefined number of words (8, 15 or 25). This adds an nice element of control and finiteness to your learning as starting off a session knowing you have 150 words to review would be pretty daunting.

An interesting behind the scenes information: The system also prioritises the words based on their frequency in the language! So you won’t be prompted to learn the word for the French screwdriver as much as you will be for recalling the verb to go.

During the review the page displays the card with the word alongside the sentence in which you encountered it. This makes it easier to recall, but also makes it easier to cheat, enabling you to guess the word from the context.

You can choose the style of your vocabulary practice; there is the typing mode (where you need to type the answer), speaking mode (where the program will read out the word you click or a flashcard you are meant to recall), and passive mode (where you only look at the words and recall them yourself). You can choose the mode in the Settings. Speaking mode is not available for all languages (yet), but already covers an impressive number of 17.

There is a feature of daily email reminders about your flashcard review. If you’re using Readlang for more than one language, you have to set the reminders and the review parameters individually for each language.

Motivation

We all know that seeing your own progress is very motivating—hence all the streak-competitions on Duolingo—and yes, let’s agree, it’s pretty cool to sit back every now and again and contemplate what we have accomplished.

Apart from monitoring the % of your progress in each text, Readlang also has an activity monitor feature on your Home page. The activity monitor informs you about the amount word translations you have done that day while the accompanying graph tracks your performance in relation to the daily goal—a preset value of 10 word translations.

Additional Features

The settings allow you to choose a type of dictionary you want to use – translation or monolingual. The latter option is very good for advanced learners.

There is also a premium version which comes with a few extra perks, but the basic offering of Readlang is perfectly well-developed and a valuable help in anyone’s language learning journey.

So… what’s the verdict?

Readlang is a really great way to access native content. It does not only allow you to read everything easily, but also helps you find and choose what to read based on your level and preference. The fact that there is a browser extension is really great. It makes it quick to learn on any site eliminating the additional steps of copying, pasting and adding files to your library.

The review system is also pretty impressive. Spaced repetition algorithms are well known to language learning geeks, but the fact that Readlang also uses word frequency as a parameter is pretty unique. So those of us who want to get the basics down before that trip to Romania, won’t be bothered with reviewing words of perhaps lesser importance.

Readlang is a truly wonderful, clean, well-designed, product that will speed up your reading practice allowing you to access and enjoy native content on your favourite topics. To sweeten this recommendation even more, the platform is completely FREE to use!

So, if you have a favourite book or site, and you’re fed up with manually looking up words or copy-pasting phrases into Google Translate, check out Readlang now!

Check out this app for bookworms and get an exclusive 20% discount!

*For those of you LinguaLifters who immediately thought of using Readlang for their study of Russian or Japanese, worry not! They are there too.

Top 10 free resources to learn Japanese

November 1, 2013 by lingualift

I think it’s wise to invest into your education, and language learning in particular. You might have to give up a few beers or coffees every month, but that one good book, app, or online resource may easily make the difference in how fast you progress.

100 best books and websites to learn Japanese

That doesn’t mean that there is no high quality material for Japanese learners that is free, but it certainly takes quite some time to find it, and to use it properly.

To save you time, I’ve decided to share some of my favourite free resources below:

Kanji and Vocabulary

Anki

If you’re a dedicated learner and have the time and determination to spend perfecting your reviewing habits and environment, Anki is by far your best choice.

The software can be tricky to use at first, but there’s a thriving community ready to help, and the spaced repetition algorithms make it a very efficient tool, especially if you’re looking to learn Japanese intensively using sentences instead of individual words and kanji.

FREE guide to learning kanji [+ an infographic! 😍]

Memrise

Memrise is an online spaced repetition vocabulary learning website. It’s not language-specific, and you’ll have to spend some time compiling a good Japanese deck (as those shared by other users tend to be lacking compared to the content available at Anki), but the interface is very pleasant to use and there’s an equally vibrant community around the website.

Grammar

Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar

Part grammar reference, part Japanese textbook, Tae Kim’s website is a classic. The grammar guide is not the easiest to navigate, but it covers most beginner-intermediate grammar, including colloquial variations, and is available in many different formats and languages.

Imabi

Imabi is a relatively new website, sporting a rather spartan user interface, but the sheer extent of grammar covered in the mini-lessons (you’ll find everything from complete basics to Japanese used in classical literature), the clarity of the explanations, and abundance of example sentences make it the perfect replacement for JGram, my previous online Japanese grammar reference of choice.

Chrome extensions all language self-learners need to know about

Dictionary

Tangorin

The best online EDICT dictionary with tons of unique features and a functional user interface. Search kanji by radicals, filter through the results with utmost precision, look up example sentences, create exportable vocab lists and more.

Tagaini Jisho

Tagaini is an open source application based on the EDICT database by Jim Breen from Monash University which is also used by most online dictionaries. While the content itself is in no way special, the software is very well done with some unique features, especially in the kanji search department.

Practice

italki

italki is an online language learning service where you can find the best language teachers from around the world. Take a lesson when and where it is convenient for you. All you need is an internet connection.

Lang-8

Write Japanese, get corrected by native speakers, help others in return. One of the first, and certainly the most successful site of this kind. Try to write regularly and take the time to understand the corrections and your writing ability will improve in no time.

NHK News Web Easy

For listening and reading, NHK News is the place to go. There’s new content every day, it’s well adapted for learning purposes, and it saves you time as you won’t have to read the news in your native language.

Q&A

Japanese Language & Usage Stack Exchange

The new addition to the excellent Stack Exchange network, Japanese Language and Usage is the place to ask your intermediate-advanced grammar questions. Don’t forget to do a quick search first, as much has been answered in great detail already.

If you’re looking for even more tools and places to learn, check out my list of 100 resources to learn Japanese and if you’re ready to give up a few lattes to learn faster and easier, be sure to visit LinguaLift.

Top 10 YouTube channels for learning Japanese

August 21, 2013 by lingualift

Videos are a great way to learn languages, and YouTube is the place to find both engaging and insightful, free language video blogs and vodcasts in addition to the for-native content out there.

Here are some of the best Japanese YouTube channels out there:

Gimmeaflakeman

Victor aka Gimmeabreakman’s videos are full of helpful tips on learning Japanese and Japanese lessons on all kinds of topics at all difficulty and politeness levels. Especially check out his Japanese for Morons series. Check out japaneseformorons too.

ThatJapaneseGirl

One of the few Japanese video bloggers. She’ll speak Japanese, and teach you some every once in a while too.

BobbyJudo

If you like Japanese food, this is the channel for you. Bobby Judo will show you how to cook, and teach some handy vocabulary at the same time.

Hikosaemon

Hikosaemon speaks in fluent Japanese on all kinds of topics from current events to random thoughts. If you’re beginner or intermediate, check out his Genki Japan videos which might be closer to your proficiency level.

Ciaela

Beautiful videos on all aspects of the Japanese culture. Some are in Japanese with English subtitles, some in English with Japanese subtitles, all equally worth watching.

Tofugu

Koichi’s wonky videos on Japan and the Japanese language. His earlier videos are the most fun, but all will give you an insight into his thoughts about Japan and Japanese learning.

JapanesePod101

Shady, annoying marketing tactics don’t do their content justice. If you manage to wade through the ads, intro animations and misleading claim, JapanesePod101 has some of the most professional video lessons out there.

YesJapan

George is an extremely fluent speaker of Japanese, and clearly a passionate teacher. His Japanese learning videos tend to be quite long and packed with useful insights for students of all abilities, although the majority of the videos of the channel are orientated at beginners.

TheBilingirlChannel

An interesting video blog of a bilingual/bicultural Japanese/American girl, who shares her thoughts and travels. It’s well subtitled and there is a good amount of Japanese to make watching it worthwhile, with plenty of English to make sure you can follow along.

japanarchist

Slightly sporadic posting schedule, and not all of the content will necessarily help you learn Japanese, but it’s a fun channel to subscribe to nonetheless.

100 top resources to learn Japanese

April 28, 2012 by lingualift

We find ourselves often giving recommendations of products to learn Japanese with, and we thought it’d be useful to compile a list for your reference.

We have included a number of our own products, only where we are convinced that they are deserving of their place in the list, and we have included paid and free study resources without discrimination.

The list is broken up by category and each item is clearly marked as to what JLPT level it targets. Everything on this list deserves your attention, but resources we’re particularly fond of, the kind we’d use ourselves, are additionally marked with a little star.

Japanese textbooks
Reviewing vocab & kanji
Serious games
Grammar reference
Dictionaries
Practice & radio
Podcasts & audio lessons
Vodcasts & video blogs
Cheat sheets
Other

Japanese textbooks

Japanese LinguaLift E-Textbook

Our very own textbook. Not written in a ‘hold your hand’ style that some require, but clear and comprehensive, covering all that is needed to prepare for the JLPT exams and most day-to-day situations. Those who prefer romaji should look elsewhere, but the native audio, interactive elements and assessments make it a perfect study and revision tool.

Genki

Probably the most popular Japanese textbook, published by The Japan Times, is well worth its reputation. Everything is well laid out, with clear grammar explanations, engaging dialogues, and helpful exercises. Best used with a teacher, working towards taking the JLPT.

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

You can think of this textbook as Genki III. Same publisher, similar presentation and structure—definitely one of the best intermediate-advanced paper textbooks on the market.

Authentic Japanese

Another good intermediate-advanced textbook. Pretty much all of the content, including grammar explanations, is in Japanese so be prepared to brush up your kanji and vocabulary before your begin.

Human Japanese

Probably the only Japanese textbook distributed as a desktop application has recently also become available on all kinds of mobile devices. Well organized lessons with engaging cultural notes and native pronunciation audio, but it doesn’t go beyond the very basics.

Erin’s Challenge!

Professional, fun and practical videos, helpful games & exercises, a unique user interface and engaging social features if you’re into that kind of thing. Erin won’t teach you everything, but you’ll learn a lot, and you’ll enjoy the ride.

TextFugu

Textfugu is a good choice for a total beginner who needs the basics broken down into extremely manageable chunks. The language taught can be a little contrived, and the approach to kanji learning is unorthodox, but the creators are friendly and happy to help if you encounter difficulties.

Japanese for Busy People

As long as you get the kana-version, this can be a pretty good textbook. The title is somewhat misleading though as the textbook is best used in classroom setting and alternatives such as Genki or our Japanese E-Textbook are much better adapted for sporadic one-point learning.

Minna no Nihongo

Quite a good textbook, especially in classroom setting. The content is very comprehensive but the book focuses more on examples than explanations, and there is no English throughout unless you buy the Translation and Grammar Notes volume separately, which can be daunting if you are a complete beginner.

Japanese for Everyone

This textbook is more dense than the others and goes at a much faster pace than for example Genki. If you’re a diligent and motivated learner and other textbooks feel too slow for you, this might be a better choice.

Japanese in Mangaland

This series of text and workbooks uses manga to illustrate what you’re learning, and it does work surprisingly well, especially if you’re into Japanese comics. Give it a try—it might be just what you’re looking for.

Colloquial Japanese

We’re not fans of its extensive use of romaji in early chapters, and its slow, progressive introduction of hiragana and katakana, but it is otherwise a decent beginner textbook, worth taking into consideration.

Nakama

With a hefty price tag, mediocre grammar explanations and boring content this is not a good textbook for self-learners, but good organization and decent activities make it a viable choice in classroom setting.

Reviewing vocabulary & kanji

FREE guide to learning kanji [+ an infographic! 😍]

Online

Japanese LinguaLift Kanji Academy

In this kanji learning & reviewing tool we’re trying to avoid rote-learning obscure characters and readings, instead teaching them in context, through useful compounds, example sentences with audio pronunciation, and mnemonics. The application comes with a handy, colourful kanji grid & look up feature providing an quick overview of your progress.

Japanese LinguaLift Vocab Lab

An SRS vocabulary learning web app full of useful compounds, accompanied with native pronunciation audio and nifty stroke order animations, and tested in a variety of different ways.

iKnow

Formerly smart.fm, this site has pretty interface and a very well done spaced repetition quiz with high quality curated lists of Japanese vocabulary. It’s not particularly well adapted for reviewing kanji, but its vocabulary-learning features more than make up for it.

Skritter

Skritter does one thing, and it does it well—it is the only online offering that lets you actually write the Chinese characters using a tablet or your mouse, and then assesses your speed and stroke order.

Kanji Koohii

If you’re following Heisig’s Remember the Kanji methodology (not that we’re particularly big fans of it), this is the site for you. It has lots of creative community-sourced mnemonic devices which will help you remember the most complicated of kanji, and a simple but functional SRS quiz using an algorithm similar to that in our Kanji Academy.

Read The Kanji

One of the first online kanji reviewing tools. Very streamlined and featuring an aesthetically pleasing user interface but somewhat repetitive and limited in question types.

kanji+

A recent arrival to the kanji reviewing market, Kanji Plus tries to handle the problem in a slightly different manner by asking you to complete the blanks in Japanese compounds, and it does work pretty well indeed.

Desktop

Anki

If you’re a dedicated learner and have the time and determination to spend perfecting your reviewing habits and environment, Anki—one of the leading SRS applications—might be the product for you.

Kleio

Kleio is a recently launched competitor to Anki, and while it’s still very young and lacks some of the more advanced features, the app is actively developed and can be found on platforms where Anki is not available. Unfortunately there aren’t many good Japanese decks just yet, so you’re best off creating your own.

Print

WRP Flashcards

The famous White Rabbit Press kana and kanji flashcards are well worth the price if you prefer learning away from your computer but don’t have the time to create your own set.

WRP Kanji Poster

A huge, beautiful wall poster of all jōyō kanji categorized by JLPT level, along with English definitions.

Learning games

Fluent Panda

Learn actionable words and expressions through bite-size mini lessons adapted for the small screen and the busy learner. As you progress, grow your very own virtual panda.

Slime Forest Adventure

For all fans of RPG games out there. Learn hiragana, katakana, vocabulary kanji. Kill some monsters and save a princess while you’re at it. There’s unfortunately no sound, and the graphics are somewhat lacking, but useful mnemonics make up for it.

Grammar reference

Print

Dictionary of Japanese Grammar

Indispensable for any serious Japanese learner, this book consists of three volumes covering almost every aspect of the Japanese grammar from the very basics up to truly advanced concepts in a clear and concise manner. If you buy just one book, this is the one to go for.

A Dictionary of Japanese Particles

This handy book covers over 100 particles in alphabetical order, explaining them with sample sentences for each meaning, illustrations and exercises for those who wish to test their knowledge of particle usage.

English Grammar for Students of Japanese

Not so much a grammar reference as an overview of grammar patterns in the English language and how they relate to Japanese. If you’re having trouble getting your head around Japanese grammar, this reverse approach may be the solution.

Online

Japanese Language and Usage

Japanese LinguaLift E-Textbook

We’re trying our best to make the LinguaLift E-textbook not only a place to learn the language, but also a handy reference tool. Each chapter is divided into sections dedicated to different grammar points, and all are easily searchable both in Japanese and in English.

Maggie Sensei

This site features extremely thorough and fairly well organized lessons covering all kinds of Japanese grammar topics from the very basics up to advanced and colloquial concepts and expressions, and is extremely culturally sympathetic.

Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide

Part grammar reference, part Japanese textbook, Tae Kim’s website is a classic. The grammar guide is not the easiest to navigate, but it covers most beginner-intermediate grammar including colloquial variations and is available in many different formats and languages.

Jgram

J-gram tried to be the Wikipedia of Japanese grammar, but the result is wanting. The site does have a very extensive grammar database but it can be difficult to find what you need, and errors and inconsistencies can easily lead you off track. Make use only when necessary and make sure to read the discussion in the comments.

Wikipedia

If all else fails, Wikipedia generally comes to the rescue, especially if you’re ready to wander into its Japanese language territory. You can find many Japanese grammar points discussed at least in some detail, as well as use it to check how a certain construction is used by searching it in Japanese articles.

About.Japanese

About.com has pretty good articles on virtually every topic, and Japanese language is no exception. Their grammar explanations are particularly helpful and generally explain things in simple language without unnecessarily going into too much detail.

Dictionaries

Desktop

Tagaini

Babylon

Babylon is an application that sits in the tray and allows you to translate anything by clicking it and pressing a keyboard shortcut at the same time. The free dictionaries included with the software are in no way exceptional, but what makes Babylon unique is the immense amount of premium dictionaries which can be loaded into it, including gems such as Genius Unabridged and Meikyo listed below.

Online

Tangorin

Denshi Jisho

Whether it’s for its simple domain name, or some of the unique features it has under the hood, Jisho.org is by far the most popular EDICT-based dictionary outside of Japan.

Why online translators are bad news

Yahoo Dictionary

This site is all in Japanese, but the UI is simple enough to navigate even if you don’t understand all of the labels. This is the dictionary for intermediate-advanced learners, especially valuable due to its accurate definitions, many example sentences, and synonyms look-up (類語).

ALC Dictionary

Another good Japanese dictionary, but only really useful for advanced learners. The content is crowd-sourced and targeted at translators so lots of definitions are too intricate, confusing, or quite simply wrong.

Kanji Networks

This is by far the most comprehensive Japanese kanji etymology dictionary on the internet. Search by character, reading or English definition to find out more about historical origins of Chinese characters, including illustrations of related pictographs and cultural tidbits.

Jim Breen WWWJDIC

There can’t be a list without Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC, the original EDICT dictionary which spawned countless, including most dictionaries on this list. The user interface is slightly dated, but the recent addition of pronunciation audio make it at least worth checking out.

Print

Meikyo Japanese-Japanese Dictionary

A new Japanese dictionary that came on the market in 2002. With information regarding usage of honorific words, typical misusages, Kanji conjugations, nuances between the different words and expressions, new Katakana words and grammatical do’s and don’ts this dictionary is a must-have for intermediate-advanced learners.

Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary

One of the most popular dictionaries among beginner-intermediate learners, and for a reason. The dictionary contains detailed explanations of Japanese words, there are lots of example sentences, and most importantly, all kanji have furigana (small kana above the characters to show their pronunciation).

Taishukan’s Unabridged Genius English-Japanese Dictionary

At 2508 pages, this is the largest and most detailed English-Japanese dictionary on the market, without sacrificing the quality and good organization for which the Genius brand of dictionaries has always been known in Japan. Unfortunately, it is not an easy book to get a hand on outside of Japan.

Kodansha’s Kanji Learner’s Dictionary

With its unique System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns (SKIP), an indexing system that enables the user to locate characters as quickly and as accurately as in alphabetical dictionaries, this book answers the urgent need for an easy-to-use kanji dictionary compact enough to be easily carried around, yet detailed enough to satisfy the practical needs of the beginning and intermediate learner.

Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary

One of the oldest (first published in 1928) and certainly the most authoritative Japanese↔English dictionary. Considered to be the reference book for scholars and translators, with over 260,000 entries this dictionary is intended for those who already have some knowledge of kanji, looking to expand their word usage out of the common and everyday.

A Dictionary of Japanese Food: Ingredients & Culture

A complete dictionary for finding words related to food in other languages. Since food is such an international subject, the dictionary contains food-related words in English, French, Italian and Chinese. Need to look up words in a Japanese bento book? This dictionary of food words will help a lot.

Practice & radio

italki

Lang-8

All Japanese All The Time

The notorious AJATT will show you how to immerse yourself entirely into the Japanese language. We’re not into this kind of stuff, but if you have the time and money, you should give it a try. Those who claim success using the system are quite messianic in their reverence for the system and its creator.

Japanese Graded Readers

Graded readers are a great way to practice your Japanese. Each book has a collection of engaging texts using kanji and vocabulary at your level. No need to wade through the dictionary every sentence, looking up words and kanji you might never see again in your life.

Breaking into Japanese Literature

Reading Japanese novels is an engaging experience and a great way to learn, but it can be a daunting task, especially if kanji are not your forte. This books presents well known works with furigana on the first occurrence of the kanji, translations, helpful explanations and downloadable audio recordings.

Read Real Japanese Fiction

Another great source of real, contemporary Japanese stories with translations and detailed explanations of nuance, usage, grammar, and culture. The book includes a free CD with the texts recorded by professional narrators.

The Great Chokochoko Library

Quite a few texts on all kinds of topics, at all the different levels. The texts are in PDF format, well formatted and followed by vocabulary lists.

Today’s Aesop’s Fable

Aesop’s fables are well known all over the word and thus it comes as no surprise that his writings were also translated into Japanese. An entire year of daily reading material with an intuitive interface, beautiful illustrations, and mp3 recording of most of the texts.

Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime

Free audio recordings of engaging Japanese and bilingual bedtime stories with PDF transcripts. New ones are added several times a year.

Free Japanese audiobooks

A list of free audio books, in Japanese, with transcripts and occasionally English translations. These are famous works from both Japanese and world writers and so the content is fairly advanced.

U of V Japanese Text Initiative

An extensive database of Japanese texts compiled by University of Virginia and easily searchable by author, title and chronological period. There’s even a hand handy option to display the text vertically or display furigana.

Radio Nikkei

Japanese radio shows on all kinds of topics, from market trends, through horse racing, all the way to podcasts on being an ecological mother and news from Russia. Natural speed but clear and professional which makes them easier to follow than most amateur broadcasts.

Podcasts & audio lessons

Learn Japanese Pod

Probably the best Japanese language podcast. Great grammar lessons at all difficulty levels, interesting cultural tidbits, and more.

JapanesePod101

Another great podcast. There’s a lot of content, at all difficulty levels, but most of it requires a paid subscription.

Pimsleur’s Japanese

This is in no case the fastest way to learn the language, but what you will learn you’ll probably remember forever. Fairly enjoyable, well thought out lessons, but beware of the hefty price tag.

NHK’s Japanese Podcast Lessons

Very professional, free Japanese audio lessons. Each starts with a simple dialogue around one or several useful expressions and then goes on to discuss every word and sentence in more detail.

Vodcasts & video blogs

Gimmeaflakeman

Victor aka Gimmeabreakman’s videos are full of helpful tips on learning Japanese and lessons on all kinds of topics at all difficulty and politeness levels. Especially check out his Japanese for Morons series.

ThatJapaneseGirl

One of the few Japanese video bloggers. She’ll speak Japanese, and teach you some every once in a while too.

BobbyJudo

If you like Japanese food, this is the channel for you. Bobby Judo will show you how to cook, and teach some handy vocabulary at the same time.

Top 10 YouTube channels for learning Japanese

Hikosaemon

Ciaela

Beautiful videos on all aspects of the Japanese culture. Some are in Japanese with English subtitles, some in English with Japanese subtitles, all equally worth watching.

Tofugu

Koichi’s wonky videos on Japan and the Japanese language. Great for beginner learners if you like this kind of style.

JapanesePod101

JapanesePod101 started as a podcast, but has since expanded to YouTube and offers some of the most professional video lessons out there.

Fanta jikan

Wonderful stories by NTT, professionally narrated and accompanied with lovely illustrations.

Cheat sheets

Nihonshock’s Ultimate Japanese Cheat Sheet

The Japanese cheat sheet of all cheat sheets. Nihonshock managed to cover all the fundamental Japanese grammar into two compact, yet readable A4s. Print, laminate, and don’t let out of your sight.

Japanese colour names

Our Japanese colour names cheat sheet is beautiful and useful at the same time. Quickly lookup the right colour name for the occasion, as well as a bunch of other, related vocabulary.

Japanese body parts

If you’re going to visit a doctor in Japan, don’t leave your house without this cheat sheet labeling (almost) every part of the human body in Japanese.

Japanese verbs conjugation

If you’re having remembering all the many Japanese verbs forms, this conjugation cheat sheet is for you.

Japanese adjectives declension

Similar to the verbs cheat sheet but this time covering the declension of Japanese adverbs and adjectives.

Japanese hiragana & katakana table

Whether you’re just beginning your Japanese learning journey, or simply can’t help but forget some of the kana characters every once in a while, check out our kana cheat sheet.

Chrome extensions all language self-learners need to know about

Other study resources

Advanced expressions & grammar

Making Sense of Japanese

Previously known as Gone Fishin’, this book is an American scholar’s attempt to convey his conviction that the Japanese language is not vague. Rubin explains how to find the subject in a subjectless sentence, explains a number of confusing expressions, and teaches how to properly read and analyze Japanese texts. Unfortunately, all examples are written in romaji.

Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow

This book provides basic information about expressions and usages that facilitate the flow of ideas and thoughts in written and spoken Japanese—from basic particles and sentence structure, through common connective expressions, all the way to common mistakes.

Common Japanese Collocations

A great book on the most frequently used noun-and-verb and noun-and-adjective combinations categorized by topic and accompanied with example sentences and common usage errors. A must read for any serious student.

Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication

An excellent book for self-learners covering many important Japanese sentence patterns, arranged by difficulty, with lots of example sentences and exercises.

The Structure of the Japanese Language

A unique book targeting students who already have a good knowledge of Japanese grammar, and want to learn how not to use given grammatical patterns. The book deals with those problems of Japanese that are either completely ignored or erroneously treated in conventional grammar books and shows what kinds of sentences one should check with native speakers to prove or disprove one’s initial hypothesis.

How to Sound Intelligent in Japanese

This is a quick and concise way to build difficult specialist vocabulary across many topics from law and politics, through business and science, all the way to philosophy and religion. Also helpful to better understand some of the more advanced kanji and how they‘re used in compounds.

Rapid Reading Japanese: Intermediate and Advanced

Great book for intermediate-advanced level students who are still uncomfortable reading real-world texts. The first section teaches you how to scan Japanese texts, the second part teaches you to skim-read, the third combines the two and some longer challenging texts at the end give you something to practise on.

All About Particles: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words

Another good book about particles. More simplistic than the Dictionary of Japanese Particles mentioned above, but easy to understand and with a large number of varied example sentences.

Japanese Core Words and Phrases

This book covers a great number of common Japanese words, idioms and phrases that are not explained satisfactorily in dictionaries or textbooks for they cannot be conveniently defined. Each explanation is accompanied with useful example sentences and dialogues.

Niche and dialectal language

Kansaiben

A website dedicated to kansaiben, a major dialect of the Japanese language spoken primarily in and around Ōsaka. If you plan to live in the Kansai region, this site will be of great help to understand and communicate with the locals.

Colloquial Kansai Japanese

With clear explanations of grammar, a Kansai-ben dictionary, and a helpful index, Colloquial Kansai Japanese is an indispensable guide to the rich speech of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe.

Writing E-mails in Japanese

Published by The Japan Times, this is the book if you’d like to learn the intricate art of e-mail correspondence in the Japanese language.

Japanese in Anime & Manga

One of many well done websites by The Japan Foundation, in this case teaching all kinds of anime and manga vocabulary, kanji and expressions through interactive games and exercises.

101 Japanese Idioms

This book will teach you over a hundred Japanese fixed expressions, crucial if you want to sound natural in your speech, and understand that of others. Each expression is accompanied with an illustration and natural example sentences.

Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeic and mimetic words are an integral part of the Japanese language, used more frequently and in a wider range of contexts than their English counterparts. This book, full of easy to understand explanations and many example dialogues will not only teach you what some of these words mean, but also show you how they are actually used.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Japanese Onomatopoeic Expressions

Another great book covering onomatopoeia, and especially gitaigo, in great detail, with short and precise explanations, and amusing illustrations.

Making Out in Japanese

A fun book on colloquial Japanese which despite its title goes beyond romantic relationships, covering all aspects of Japanese slang and informal language. Be sure to check what you learn with a native as some of the content might be outdated or potentially offensive.

Dirty Japanese

Another book on colloquial Japanese. From slang, through insults and swear words, all the way to explicit sex terms, Dirty Japanese teaches the casual expressions heard every day on the streets of Japan. Again, be sure to check what you learn with a native as some of the content might be outdated or potentially offensive.

Dating, Love and Sex in Japanese

Love, Hate and Everything in Between

Staying on the topic of emotions, good or bad, this book covers more than 400 phrases that are useful when talking about personal experience and nuances of feeling. The book includes loads of example sentences which will allow you to understand the material and start using it confidently in your own speech.

70 Japanese Gestures: No Language Communication

If you’re low on words, but still want to express your emotions, gestures are where it’s at, and this book is one of the more thorough and especially enjoyable resources on the topic.

スーパービジュアル版早わかり世界史

This is a great book for those of you who’d like to expand your history and geography related vocabulary. The book is full of pictures and is made to be easy to understand, but it does require good knowledge of kanji.

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Why online translators are bad news

June 4, 2011 by lingualift

It’s oh-so tempting when you’re stuck on a piece of Japanese homework, trying to trawl your way through a difficult article on a website or want to quickly reply to a message that your Japanese friend sent you—”Google translate will do the trick” you think to yourself. It won’t.

The Japanese language is full of inferences, idiomatic expressions and nuance. Even human beings have issues understanding exactly what is said in Japanese and how best to translate it—so what chance does a computer have?

Computer translations are getting better and better. Online translation between the Romance European languages is often very good (that is to say understandable, but not always accurate). This is because structurally, syntactically and linguistically there are many parallels, and any idiom or nuance is often similar. What helps too is that across these languages (French to Italian, for example) there are similar sentence structure patterns that emerge.

Trying out Google Translate

Let’s take an English sentence to see how a human would deal with it, and how an online translator deals with it.

I fancy going shopping with my family today.

This is a pretty simple sentence, and something that is probably quite often said. I put it into Google translate and got:

Let’s look at some issues with this sentence.

1. It doesn’t know what not to translate

In Japanese, unless absolutely necessary, personal pronouns (I, you, we, etc) are rarely used. It’s obvious that it’s me who wants to go shopping, so the Japanese just don’t say ‘I’ unless the context is implicate of the contrary.

2. It’s translated every word

Another feature of Japanese is that so much more is implied than English. In this sentence, we see the word 「一緒に」 is present, which whilst not strictly wrong, it’s obvious that I’m going ‘along with’ my family if I just said ‘with’ my family. It’s meaning is is more like ‘all together’ or ‘along with’ than simply ‘with,’ which would be translated as と.

3. It’s taken the most literal meaning

‘I fancy’ is a phrase in English which can mean a number of things. “I fancy a hot chocolate” is very different to saying “I fancy my girlfriend.” What google has given us is the word 空想, which is literally a ‘fantasy’ or ‘daydream.’ Whilst this word is great if you’re speaking about dragons or pie-in-the-sky ideas that people have, it’s less useful if you’re just saying that you’d quite like to do something.

We also see this with お店, which is, strictly speaking the word for a shop, but when speaking about going shopping, it’s common place to use the verbal phrase 「買物をする」. It’s like in English saying, “I’m traveling to a merchant.” Not strictly incorrect, but not correct either.

4. It doesn’t know what is the best sentence structure to use.

In Japanese, not only are there firm conventions like the verb coming at the end of a sentence, there are more general rules about where the subject of the sentence goes and where the time reference is placed. In English, we could say, “at seven o’clock I brush my teeth.” Far more natural is “I brush my teeth at seven o’clock.” It’s the same kind of thing in Japanese. Here, it’s very unusual to see the word for today 「今日」 in the middle of the sentence.

5. The grammatical structure is fundamentally different.

When saying that you ‘fancy’ doing something, you’re really saying that you’d ‘like’ to do something. In Japanese, there is the 〜たい form (e.g. 「パリに行きたい」, “I want to go to Paris”) or the word 欲しい used after the 〜て form. Knowing which to use is a matter of practice and judgement. The verb ending here is just a regular present tense dictionary form. Not at all what I wanted it to be!Can Microsoft do any better?

For comparison, I thought I’d try out Bing translate, and this is what I got:

Here we’ve at least got the word 買い物, which is a promising start. However, we also have the two particles と and を in a row, which is simply wrong! Never in Japanese could you have particles paired like that save for certain exceptions such as emphatic particles (e.g., よね), before は (e.g., には、では、とは、のは）and occasionally before が (e.g., のが). Again, we see this word 空想 crop up, where no human translator would ever considering using it. The whole sentence is generally a mess.

Online translation can be fun

To prove just how loony automated translations can be, the website Translation Party was created by two guys, Will Carlough and Richard Boenigk, which seeks to ‘find equilibrium’ between translations, and backward translations of an English phrase into Japanese. This is to say that if you translate, and back translate something often enough, the phrase will become so devoid of meaning that when translated back and forth, the same result will appear each time. I tried this phrase:

When learning Japanese, it’s worth considering if NihongoUp will meet your needs.

It’s quite evident that if the English makes no sense, the Japanese is equally unlikely to make any sense. Try it out for yourself with the sentence we looked at above: http://www.translationparty.com/#9392929, and see how “I fancy going shopping with my family today” becomes “I was going to spend time with his family for shopping and weather.”

If you have any particularly funny Translation Party equilibriums, I’d love for you to post them in the comments below!

So what can I do about getting a good translation?

Firstly, getting a good translation is a very difficult thing to do, and is a skill that has a price attached to it. Resist just emailing people who you think may be able to translate for you with the expectation that they should be able to do it for free. Like anything that you’ve worked hard for, you should be properly remunerated.

If you’d like to rely on the translation a little more, your next port of call (if you can’t speak Japanese well enough yet) is to go to a translation agency. There are many about, but the one for which I translate in my spare time is Gengo, a Japanese start-up that is a joy to use and very reasonably priced. If you ever have a few sentences that you need a quick translation for, I’d encourage you to give it a try…

Review: Is Rosetta Stone Japanese worth it?

January 20, 2011 by lingualift

Whether you are learning Japanese, or any other language, you’ve probably heard of the ubiquitous Rosetta Stone language learning software that promises to teach you any language effortlessly, exactly how a child learns his or her mother tongue.

In the this post, we’ll look at what Rosetta Stone has to offer, and whether it’s worth the money. While I’m primarily going to discuss the Japanese language version of the application, the advice and conclusions are largely applicable to other editions as well.

Rosetta Stone Japanese review

First of all, let’s have a short look at what Rosetta Stone has to offer.

The price

The Rosetta Stone Japanese course is divided into three difficulty levels. Level 1 software costs $249.00, Level 2 and 3 cost $299.00 each. You can also purchase Level 1, 2 & 3 Set for $579.00.

Note that despite being divided into three levels and numerous lessons, the course barely reaches the higher-beginner level of Japanese, and Japanese presented in Level 3 lessons is still very simplistic.

Also, even after completing all three levels of Rosetta Stone Japanese, you may still have problems passing JLPT N5, the lowest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test which is generally considered to be very easy. Surprisingly enough, you may have difficulties even with the listening section; Rosetta’s course has a high concentration of listening exercises, but they are unfortunately all played at a very slow, unnatural speed incomparable to the dialogues presented at the JLPT.

The software

If there’s one place where Rosetta Stone excels, it is the quality of its software. The application is extremely polished, virtually bug-less, and is presented with a beautiful and highly intuitive design.

When you first launch the program, you will be greeted with a selection of different curricula which you can choose from. Some help estimate your level of Japanese, some are intended to quickly teach you the basics, and some are optimized for a more long-term holistic approach to learning the language. In practice, the different courses vary only slightly, and follow the exact same methodology.

After watching a short inspirational intro video, you’ll be thrown right into the action. You will be presented with various images and simple sentences and will be prompted to make your best guess as to what you see and how it’s called. If you’re used to rote learning vocabulary and grammar, this method will indeed look quite impressive at first, especially if you’re lucky enough to guess right most of the time.

On every screen, you will have the option between displaying the text in Japanese characters, or in romaji. If you decide to use Rosetta, we urge you to choose the former. For a more thorough explanation as to why, please read my introduction to romaji and introduction to kana.

The method

Unlike most of its competitors, Rosetta takes a very relaxed approach, and the premise behind its way of teaching Japanese and other languages is certainly very appealing. The company invites you to throw away all your flash cards, dictionaries, and boring grammar & memory tests, and to learn the language the way a Japanese akachan (baby) does in its infancy—by immersing yourself into native dialogues and exclamations without the slightest ideas about Japanese vocabulary or grammar.

What the authors of Rosetta Stone are forgetting is that you are most probably no longer a child, let alone a baby. This ‘natural’ way of learning the language may be engaging at the beginning, but in the long-term, this is not an effective way of learning Japanese. We’re already used to complex grammar structures and our syntactical knowledge is infinitely more advanced than that of a child, meaning that we can take many shortcuts when studying a foreign language as many of the important conceptual links have already been made. Rosetta stone, to a certain extent, neglects this.

This is to say I am in no case against learning Japanese by immersion. In fact, I am a big believer in this method, and if you do have the time and resources to learn this way, certainly give it a try. There are many ways of immersing yourself into natural Japanese without giving up on other ways of learning the language at the same time. Nobody has ever ‘just learned’ Japanese without studying the language—even Japanese people!

Should I buy Rosetta Stone?

The answer to this question depends on who you are, and whether you have to pay for the software package. If you are a member of the U.S. Army (and thus have free access to Rosetta Stone), or an employee whose company offers you a free version of the software, then certainly go for it. Rosetta Stone certainly has it’s positives, especially at the higher-beginner stage of the learning process. In the worst case, you’ll learn some new vocabulary, improve your pronunciation, and switch to a different learning method. Multiple resources are plainly better than just one.

If, however, you are buying Rosetta Stone from your own pocket, you may want to reconsider your options, as it’s very difficult to justify the high price of the program. Despite their claims, it is almost impossible to learn a language with Rosetta Stone alone, and more often sooner than later you’ll have to spend you hard-earned on further resources, which, as if further expenses weren’t bad enough, won’t necessarily follow the curriculum you’ve got used to.

There are no intermediate or advanced courses offered by Rosetta Stone, and there never will be any, as the teaching method is oriented purely at beginner learners. Unless you only need the basic understanding of the language before your trip to Japan (in which case you should take another long look at the price tag), this method is not the best way to go.

Conclusion

If you are provided with a free copy of Rosetta Stone Japanese, or if you don’t care about the price, do check it out. The software can be a great additional resource on your way to Japanese fluency, especially if you have difficulties mastering the Japanese pronunciation. By no means treat it as the only Japanese learning method.

If you have to pay for Rosetta Stone yourself, it is best take a step back before you take the plunge. There are many alternative online and offline language learning software packages that are comparable, or even superior to Rosetta Stone Japanese, yet are offered at a fraction of the price. Do your research, and work out what’s best for you in the long run and not what seems immediately appealing.

Have you used Rosetta Stone to learn Japanese? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Cover image: Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone during the International Congress of Orientalists of 1874