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The best explanation I've ever read online:

80/20 Japanese: The Difference Between the Particles “wa” and “ga”

 

The best explanation I've ever read:

Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You by Jay Rubin (it's a whole chapter of the book)

Jay Rubin professionally translates famous works.

You may find Seely and Henshall’s “The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji: Remembering and Understanding the 2,136 Standard Characters” (2016) to be interesting. The authors give etymologies for all the common Jōyō characters, and are very responsible about citing the authorities for each explanation and presenting alternate theories when the scholars disagree. It also has pictures of the oracle bone script and seal script versions of characters, when attested. I have found the kindle version very useful to keep on my phone for quick lookup via the search function. Please find the Amazon link below: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Japanese-Kanji-Understanding-ebook/dp/B01DIF7RBI/ref=nodl_

The order is-

あいうえお

かきくけこ

さしすせそ

たちつてと

なにぬねの

はひふへほ

まみむめも

や　ゆ　よ

らりるれろ

わ　　　を 　　ん

This app is a lot better than Duolingo for kana. I'd reccomend you learning vocab by yourself, from most common words, altrough that's a bit of a pain in the ass.

Also, check out this dictionary, if you want.

色んな is an euphonic change of 色々な. So they have same meanings. But 色んな is more casual (in general, an euphonic change make an expression more casual). Sited from:色々な と 色んな はどう違いますか？ | HiNative

You can use "色々な" and "色んな" in same context.

Ummm... I think I found it... wow this was a tough one. But the PDF (20mb) is in a less (apologies) "child-friendly" format but has the same content.
http://www.koto8.net/nihongo_learn.pdf

Img1: S-01; to suck; pdf page 52
Img2: K-01; to curve; pdf page 83
Img3: N-03; gluey; pdf page 10
Img4: T-05; to adhere; pdf page 75

It is from this book Learn Japanese From Etymology: Approach From Sound Symbolism by Watanabe Masamichi
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-Japanese-Etymology-Approach-Symbolism-ebook/dp/B00WWYP1VA

This book is a compilation of Japanese-specific vocabulary. This book focuses only on pure Japanese vocabulary excluding Chinese vocabulary which is shown by the kanji. This book covers approximately 1,800 Japanese words in total, which 860 of them are explained with illustrations. It covers almost all Japanese words. The Book is classifying Japanese in the unique method. The consistent idea throughout the book is “there is a relationship between vocal sounds and meanings in the Japanese language”. The principle of Japanese word generation is shown. The former linguistic theory of origin was a hypothesis. At this book, vocabulary is classified on the basis of Japanese origin theory. It is useful actually, so the value of this theory will be demonstrated.

I'm not sure how deep you want to go in on this topic but if you are interested, please also consider the fact that the word "Orange" originated approximately 500 years ago. (according to m-w) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orange

Before the word orange, what did English speakers use to specify orange? What was orange before オレンジ色 and 橙色? Was "orange" even considered its own unique color? Colors are not as objective as many people like to think. Case in point, what color is 青い(aoi)?

I used WaniKani to learn 2000 kanji and 6000 words in a year.

It has mnemonics for everything it teaches, which some people find very helpful, but they aren't necessary by any means. I stopped using them after the first month or two.

It's not free, though.

You can create something similar for free with a program called Anki if you'd rather.

They seem to all have the kanji and romaji in the descriptions of the shirts. If you don't know some of the words you can look them up here

Not trying to be dismissive of your question or anything, this just seems like a better solution than getting someone to translate eight pages of t-shirts.

If you're going to avoid kanji, you might as well not learn Japanese at all.

 

But, if you know some of the kanji in a word, you can search for the word using the known kanji/okurigana and * at jisho.

Take 好奇心 for example. You probably know 好き, and 心. Just type 好*心 into the dictionary to fill in the middle kanji and find 好奇心（こうきしん）means "curiosity." You could also search *奇心, 好奇*, or *奇* if you wanted.

If that's not an option, I prefer using Google Translate's hand-drawing input on desktop. Try to use the correct stroke order if you can manage to guess it to have an easier time using it.

 

For learning lots of kanji... Look into Kanji/Vocab SRS on this subreddit, or /r/LearnJapanese. I personally used WaniKani.

>Buying all those volumes plus shipping fees is gonna be a pain, and I'm not even sure from where I could do that

amazon.co.jp, they ship internationally and you can toggle English as the language for some of the interface (google translate does the rest).

>So is there any place online where I can find manga in their original japanese text

nyaa.si and set the filter for "literature - non-English translated".

Edit: and start with "Yotsuba&" (よつばと), super easy to read.

Struggling with kanji, and bored with Anki or WaniKani or whatever? Please give our game Kasui a try. It's completely free (no ads, no IAP, no permissions required), and as you play you'll memorize incredibly, erm, "colorful" vocabulary, such as:

• [玉露](#fg "ぎょくろ"): high-class green tea
• [雲海](#fg "うんかい"): sea of clouds
• [香魚](#fg "あゆ"): sweetfish
• [霞桜](#fg "かすみざくら"): Korean hill cherry
• [照葉](#fg "てりは"): beautiful shiny autumn leaves

... and hundreds more!

Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.fzort.games.kasui

日本の方でも楽しめればいいと思います。Please let us know what you think. :-)

One thing that helped me learn stroke order on kanji is this particular kanji dictionary: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0804804087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_8ZE6Y315TSDQACMVFHR2 My sense in college had a copy of this and showed us how to use it, and it's really simple. All the radicals are written on the inside cover by stroke order to help out.

Nice setup and good resources to learn from. I got this book that I like. It's pocket sized that you can take with you when you're away from your learning station. https://www.amazon.com/Correct-writing-kanji-characters-Elementary/dp/401011200X

According to searches, there's no meaningful difference between 全て and 全部.

For those curious, there is a distinction for [全体](#fg "ぜんたい") and [全部](#fg "ぜんぶ"):

【全体・[部分](#fg "ぶぶん")】All parts that make up a whole is 全体, a collection of parts separated from a whole; if it is not 全体, it is 部分. (i.e. if one human is 全体, hands and feet are 部分)

【全部・[一部](#fg "いちぶ")】If there are many similar things, all of it is 全部, if not it's 一部. (i.e. if there are groups of humans that make up a 全部, males and females are an 一部 of that)

> although it would be a great task to be able to memorize even one of the alphabets.

 

Technically they're syllabaries, since they get pieced together into words as whole syllables. The kana aren't a big deal on their own though; you could dedicate a weekend or so and get at least hiragana down well enough to start learning from beginner materials. After that, it'll be endlessly reinforced every time you use the language.

Kanji are a big wall, but aren't impossible. I taught myself the first ~2000 kanji in ~6000 words in a year using WaniKani, and now reading Japanese feels like a superpower lmao. It's extremely satisfying to be able to read most things I look at.

WK ramps up very slowly, but the first 3 levels (of 60 total) are free. ~1 year to complete is unrealistic unless you're willing to spend 1-2 hours a day on it and watch your review schedule like a hawk, but it's absolutely doable if you want it badly enough.

Do a little bit every day, it adds up really quickly. As somebody pointed out already, once you know about 250-500, you'll find that you can start reading a good bit of Japanese you see and it will make a huge difference in your studies. At 10 new kanji a day, you'll be pretty good after just a month or two. Obviously, you could do more a day if you want and can handle it.

When I started at it I wished I started earlier because being able to read kanji speeds up reading and learning vocab a great deal.

Give Anki a try with a deck of choice, supplement that by continuing reading. NHK WEB EASY is a great resource as well.

I highly recommend Kanji Study by Chase Colburn, it's got a brilliant writing practice mode which includes hiragana and katakana for free. When you're done with those, it's also the best Kanji app on the market (imo).

I have been using WaniKani and I like it. I recommend trying the first three levels, which are free, to decide if you are interested. The first level feel really slow or underwhelming, but the later levels can feel really difficult. If you do decide to go with WaniKani make sure to take it at your own pace and try to do at least a little bit every day.

Here is a good review of WaniKani: 7 Reasons to Love WaniKani for Kanji - All About Japan.

The ~2000 kanji still aren't impossible, though.

 

As somebody who only knew English, I used a site called WaniKani to acquire ~2000 kanji with ~6300 vocab words. I got everything unlocked in just a year, and I've been reviewing it ever since (~8 months now).

At this point, I'm able to play FF14 Online entirely in Japanese, and understand a vast majority of what I'm reading in any other game I play in Japanese.

Listening is still hard for me though though. I've kind of been putting it off, thinking that reading comes first and I'll get all the listening I need if/when I land a job in Japan.

Also, I pushed WaniKani as fast as I could for a whole year, I guess average completion time is more like 1.5-2 years. Still, if you want it badly enough, it is doable.

Wanikani is probably the most popular site that teaches kanji by component. (To be clear, it uses the term "radical", but they're really WK's own handpicked parts rather than the traditional radicals that kanji dictionaries use.) Also note that it's a pay site, although you can try the first three levels for free to see whether you find it helpful.

If you're okay with a paper book, there's the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, which also uses components (it tends to prefer the term "graphemes" for these).

Both WK and KKLC also teach vocabulary to reinforce the readings. WK's vocab tends to be somewhat more immediately useful at beginner levels, while KKLC's vocab is more erudite. WK does force you to learn the basic meaning of a kanji and one of its readings before introducing vocab, whereas I find it more useful to learn readings through vocabulary.

Nothing that uses EDICT is the "best".

http://jisho.org/search/hungry

Do you see the phrases 腹減った or お腹すいた? They're on the list of results, but after like 9-10 far more obscure phrases/words. So it's pretty goddamn useless for E2J translation, now isn't it?

Rarely used. As with あなた, if you have a name or descriptor to use, you use it.

Linguee has 4 hits, and 3 of them are from a religious teacher (regular teachers might use it towards students too).

Ok, so if we're talking about using logic for argumentation, perhaps 論理 is gonna be a good choice, as in the second example sentence on this page.

Please keep in mind, I'm not a fluent Japanese speaker. I'm a third-year student. This is what I came up with from some quick research.

EDIT: what I can say with a good amount of confidence is that 理 alone would not be appropriate for this context

I guess Faith = Shinko? I don't know how common a name that is nowadays. But it's going to be difficult, because whereas in Japanese it's a bit easier to attach meanings to names, particularly with kanji, in English it's less common. Things like Harmony, Destiny etc exist but names like Matt and Sophie are far more common.

Edit: also Iris = Ayame, which is fairly common. Have a look at this list and cross reference to see if they're Japanese names as well.

https://www.wordnik.com/lists/common-english-words-that-are-also-first-names

I'd strongly recommend WaniKani. They don't emphasize writing kanji, but have a superb program for having you learn kanji quickly. I've memorized hundreds of words very quickly through their system.

I've noticed that EDICT has Korean (and Chinese) readings in the kanji entries, but I don't know Korean, so I can't tell you how complete or accurate they are. But if you want to see for yourself, you can use any dictionary that is based on EDICT, such as jisho.org (scroll down to the "Readings" section).

If you need one big list rather than searching for each character individually, you can download the dictionary file here (what you want is "kanjidic"). If you know how to program, you could easily extract all the information you need from the file.

In Japanese the character primarily means 'convenient.' In Chinese, I believe, it also has a similar meaning, though it is used to mean 'inexpensive' as well.

I assume that it became connected with flight (and postage, etc.) simply because flight and air postage are modern conveniences. I can't find any specific information about why it is used for this purpose though.

The Japanese Wiktionary lists bin as a 慣用音 kanyouon [commonly accepted reading], which could indicate that this kanji was adopted for the word 'flight'/'postage' (bin) simply due to a matching reading (see Ateji).

If I find out any more info I'll let you know. Interesting observation! I had never thought of this before.

Jisho.org has a cool feature related to this.

That's not exactly what you're looking for, but you can use it as a base. yuseff has given you what you're looking for, as far as I know. Just for future reference.

I'd like to recommend you Memrise, in particular this course below that contains 4000 words from basic to advanced level with batches of 15 words each (if it looks like too much you can check other courses as well, they are completely free) http://www.memrise.com/course/92902/the-ultimate-kanji-course/ Cheers!

RTK and Anki. Only bother with RTK 1 and 3, follow the instructions in the book and you will have Kanji down very quickly.

RTK - http://blog.matthewhawkins.co/glossary/rtk/

Anki - https://apps.ankiweb.net/

The best method for learning Kanji is a system by James Heisig in Remembering The Kanji.

It's a little atypical—book 1 is meaning only and book 2 is pronunciation—but if you stick with the method it's quite incredible. At my peak I was learning ~100/day with excellent retention.

And then it's just drill drill drill like everyone says. But when drilling focus on writing. Production is harder than recognition as a rule so that's what you should focus on.

I use an excellent flash card app called Anki which has desktop and mobile versions. It's pricey on mobile if I recall correctly but worthwhile. It's got a bit of a learning curve but definitely worth the investment. And you'll find lots of shared decks, including if memory serves, one based on the Heisig books. (Although there is definitely value in building your own yourself.)

I'm on iOS and you can add the Chinese Traditional Handwriting IME in "Keyboards" which allows you to practice your writing. It's not great for general Japanese input, but for Kanji practice it gets the job done. I'm sure there's something similar for Android.

Good luck!

Edit:fixed my mangled link

Hi, I recently published an Android Japanese-English dictionary app to help me read native material. It is free and doesn't contain adds:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talutalu.k

I'm aware that a lot of apps and tools already exist. It was too tempting to make my own app during the pandemic and try to overcome some frustrations I had with other apps. Here is a list of distinctive features that might already be included in other apps:

• you can quickly select any kanji or part thereof from the search results to look for new words containing that kanji or part,
• it includes Japanese definitions from the Wiktionary project,
• it is a smart dictionary as it will compute statistics about the kanji reading knowledge of the user,
• the user can review the reading of Japanese words in a graph that is like an extended crossword quiz.

I hope that this app can help others as well. Let me know what you think about it!

> Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings by Edward Morse

This book is also good for the coffee table. Beautiful photos and details about nuanced design elements in Japanese architecture, their influences etc.

I think there are much better ways to practice your Japanese listening comprehension but I did find the movie on Amazon(Japanese)

頑張って!

There are some on Amazon, like this one

I don't know if these are available online or not, but there is a great series called "Aozora Bunko." They're written for like elementary school students. They have original books, but they also have a lot of simplified classic Japanese novels like Genji Monogatari, Botchan, and the like. The benefit is that there are lots of furigana, so it's easy to read.

I think even N3 could read these.

I also like this book , オール１の落ちこぼれ、教師になる. It's about a guy who got all 1s in school (the lowest grade possible) and then went on to become a high school teacher. Pretty interesting story, and quite a bit of furigana for the difficult characters.

暑かったら脱げばいい 絵本 This is what I typed in to find the book. Here are the kanji for it 暑(あつ) 脱げ(ぬげ) 絵本(えほん).

Typing this in gave me a link to Amazon, and hopefully this is the book you were looking for.

Get the app "Memrise" and start learning vocabulary untill your books from Genki arrive. It's also on PC.

There are lots of courses with only vocabulary or kanji's or both ranging from N5 to N1.

Also Genki 1 / 2 vocab.

https://www.memrise.com/course/29267/genki-i/

You could learn that so you got a heads up when the books arrive...

Also if you are serious about writing kanji and not just reading them then get the app "Kanji Study". It's got EVERYTHING from vocab to quizess to writing challenges to sentecse examples, dictionary search trough meaning,pronunciation, radicals....

Up to N4 i think is free but the extra 5 or so bucks are totally worth it. Best deal you will make in your life.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindtwisted.kanjistudy&hl=nl

I use Kotoba-chan. It is focused on vocabulary and divides the words into JLPT level and frequency. It also shows a lot of example sentences in order to learn how to use the words.

I also recommend Obenkyo to learn kanji. They are listed by JLPT level or RTK. You can also use it to learn vocabulary but the JLPT list is a bit out of date. It includes Tae Kim Japanese Grammar Guide. But it doesn't show example sentences.

What helped me learn them was a combination of practicing writing them out, so that the shapes and strokes were learnt, and practicing translating romaji text into hiragana. Also, a couple of online resources: Hiragana Test and Kana Warrier (This was really fun and covers all of the hiragana too, despite the name).

Keep going, you'll get there!

おはようございます！

JA Sensei from Japan Activator

I haven't tried the app myself, but the website and its administrator are amazing. I work as his FR-EN translator and I'm having a great time learning Japanese there. Enjoy! :)

If you don't mind creating the "cards" yourself, Anki can do that. You would need to input the kana and it's corresponding romaji (FYI, it's romaji, NOT roma*n*ji.), and then edit the cards template to ask you for input when answering.

homepage

google play link

edit: actually, it's possible to just download one of the publicly shared decks for kana directly through the program itself.

As far as I know there wouldn't be a Unicode character because they are the same character. It's just written differently.

Here is a link to Google Fonts Japanese fonts. You'll see that the first 3-4 write Ki that same way

https://fonts.google.com/?subset=japanese&preview.text=き&preview.text_type=custom

Is this about your tattoo again? 理 is a common enough word, and you can find example sentences at that link.

But don't be surprised if Japanese people think you're an idiot for putting it on your body. It just doesn't make sense.

You're welcome :)

Hmm.. do you mean an online dictionary or a translator? Because they are quite different. I like to use http://jisho.org/ for an online dictionary. There are also very good offline handphone applications such as Aedict for Android users and Imiwa? for iPhone users. I also recommend the pop-up dictionary extensions, Rikaigu for Chrome users and Rikaichan for Firefox users.

As for a translator, google translate is your best bet for now :)

Yes, like what seraphim said, it would help if you had the kanji characters for it. According to the name dictionary I use, ritsuo has 10 variations. (http://jisho.org/search/%E3%82%8A%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8A%20%23names). There are only two variations for the kanji for ritsu however, and it either means 'law' or 'to stand'.

Google the heisig method and check out RevTk

Thats how i learned

Write each kanji by hand. Itll cement what youve learned as well as teach proper stroke order.

About a decade ago when i first started learning, the recomended order was katakana->hiragana->kanji-> grammer/vocab/phrases. Might seem counter productive but i found it a lot easier to learn when i already knew what the kanji meant.

The best method is going to be whatever you can do routinely on a daily basis without stopping— so, do the one that seems most appealing.

The worst method would be to decide on the ideal approach, and then be too intimidated to actually do anything so you give up and do nothing.

--

I used WaniKani to learn an average of 5 kanji & 16 vocab per day for a year until I finished it. That was a pretty intense pace though; I reached the end in July, but I'm still averaging ~200 reviews every day. It's also a subscription service whose selling point is its mnemonics, which I stopped using after a month or two, but overall I've been incredibly satisfied with it.

That's true, but ultimately the issue is that EDICT is a Japanese->English dictionary, so using it like an English->Japanese dictionary isn't going to give quality results no matter what is done to the search algorithm. It's simply searching for words inside the definition after all. A word appearing in a definition doesn't necessarily mean it's related to the dictionary entry.

For example, if I search for the word obfuscate, I get ギャル文字 as the first result simply because it was in the definition.

I'm not criticizing EDICT or anything. It's just being used for something it was never meant for here.

Learn hiragana and katakana asap because it's everywhere.

The most commonly used ja-en dictionary is EDICT. It's massive and free. There are many interfaces for it; I think the best one is jisho.org.

Argh, there's so much to talk about and I'm so lazy... >_<

Good point a few more hits for あなたたち.

More examples (these aren't from real life though). On further thought, it's not really "rare" like I wrote before, but tends to be used either familiarly (あなたたちはいつ別れましたか? When did you two break up?) or formal (giving an address or used in writing - think of a self help book addressing the reader on how to fix "your" marriage).

Kanji vs. not using them comes down to how common the word is/if it has Japanese roots (as opposed to Chinese roots like many kanji compounds), and audience (hiragana is "softer"/comes across friendlier than kanji). 達 is common and personal, so often gets left in hiragana - 私たち, 僕たち, 君たち (casual) are all the most common forms.

knowing one of the two common readings of the characters is great, that's not negative at all. you'll pick up the other half as you go (and there's more than two for a few characters). it takes time. just focus on words as opposed to kanji, and the kanji will come along with it.

another thing to do is to use a drawing interface and look these words up directly. that is, you can get a handwriting keyboard installed on your phone, and draw the kanji to look the words up in a dictionary. the writing practise also helps drive home information. whenever you look up a word with a new character, pay attention to the stroke order. with a few exceptions, the ordering is pretty consistent if you pay attention to radicals.

on android, the handwriting interface is called the google handwriting keyboard, and the dictionary i use is takoboto. it's not great but it's serviceable. if you have an iphone, get the midori app as a dictionary, it's amazing and i wish it was on android. i don't know the name of the handwriting interface there but i know it exists.

speaking of radicals, there's a good book https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268 on kanji. however, again, although you might be learning kanji as you go, focus on memorizing WORDS not letters. the letters will come along for the ride.

I have been studying for about 2 months;

The app is free - here is a link

My other main source is Busuu, but you have to pay to unlock the grammar lessons, so I just search them up online (PuniPuniJapan has worked well for me)

I have an old Japanese for Dummies book that is all in romaji. Looking at the second editon on amazon, looks like they use Japanese text AND romaji.

I believe it is the "Learning Japanese Hiragana and Katakana" book by Kenneth G. Henshall, you can find it on amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Self-Study/dp/4805312270

For kana, I used these apps: Hiragana Pro and Katakana Pro.

I learned kana in a few hours with those apps.

After that, I started Tae Kim's grammar guide, but I've only done it lightly for a few weeks so I can't tell you much about it.

I learned katakana and hiragana by just drilling them for a couple of days. There are a couple apps on Android called Hiragana Pro and Katakana Pro that do a really great job. They gradually introduce the kana to you while going back and drilling you on the ones you've already learned. These apps really helped me a lot and like I said, I was able to memorize both within a few days each.

&#x200B;

Edit: I should also add that even though you may know the kana and have them memorized, doesn't mean you'll be a master at reading. I still struggle with reading, it's just a matter of practice practice practice :)

As far as the basic Japanese vocabulary is concerned, try using the Beginner Japanese app and the StartFromZero_Japanese app to learn some basic Japanese words and phrases from scratch on your own.

If you are interested, you could easily begin learning on your own some basic Japanese words and phrases from scratch with simple but efficient flashcard tools like the Beginner Japanese app and the JLPT Locker app.

As far as the basic Japanese vocabulary is concerned, you could easily begin learning on your own some simple Japanese words and phrases from scratch with flashcard apps like the Beginner Japanese app.

As far as the basic hiragana vocabulary goes, you could easily learn some of the commonly used words and phrases on your own from scratch with apps like the Beginner Japanese or StartFromZero_Japanese apps

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnerjapanese

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.startfromzero_japanese

Try KanjiStudy on android.

There are tons of options, for everything from self-judging to auto-judging to pick the right one.

You can study up against the English meaning or context in a Japanese sentence or the Japanese sounds. It's the best app I've seen.

Obviously, there is no way around actually reading japanese materials. Whether magazines, websites, news, articles etc. Knowing the words is pointless if you don't know the context its used in. I learnt that the hard way.

Still, I have to also emphasize its important to keep a line to your vocab bank on all you have learnt. Its like tools in your tool belt. You can't 'fix' or 'work' anything if you have no 'tools'. From all the free resources I've used, this android app called JLPT Locker is a pretty good app to keep around. If only to drill yourself on the tools in your 'tool box'.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.jlptlocker&amp;hl=en

I'm not sure what field you work in, but I'm in software development and I've found that my ordinary Japanese->English dictionaries contain all of the technical terms I care about. The dictionaries I use are Jsho on Android and Jisho.org on the web.

Make sure it's Japanese. They sell sets for students. This is a critical point. Chinese calligraphy sets, especially those $20-30 ones, are absolute garbage for tourists who don't know what they're doing. They can also be good for rough painting, but legible writing? Not particularly.

This Kuretake set is basically what students in Japan would use. The brand is a reputable stationery maker. For best results, I'd still recommend getting materials separately in person so that the user can assess the quality, but if you must get a set, I must insist it be Japanese because the Chinese ones will make it harder on your wife, especially if she's a beginner.

True that, I tried to subscribe to a monthly sub for ProtonVPN but guess what? Still blocked. So screw it, there's FM Setagaya and Kumejima anyway, nothing like Umeda but do I have any choice?

Also I still keep track of the playlist they play every week and just apply those songs into my playlist in Youtube Music but it isn't just the same lmao

Try a book that has both languages in it so you can compare them. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Stories-Language-Learners-Bilingual/dp/4805314680 This way you can try and read the Japanese but easily fall back on English if you need. I'm not specifically endorsing this book. There are lots like this that you can search for based on language ability.

Tobira: Power Up Your Kanji

I found this little guy to be extremely useful and easy to learn from. It’s written for natives or advanced speakers, but definitely worth the money (though truly, it’s quite inexpensive).

I reckon OP wants a tattoo that says "fly", not "jump". Probably inspired in the anime Haykyuu, where the motto of the main volleyball team is "fly". There are actually T-shirts with this slogan (https://www.amazon.com.br/Camiseta-Camisa-Haikyuu-Masculino-Preto/dp/B08JXPKKQL) so a tattoo does not seem that bad to me - as long as it's not the one in the second picture I mean.

I bought this book about the Dragonflies of Japan and it's a superb field reference guide for identifying dragonflies there:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%B0%BE%E5%9C%92-%E6%9A%81/dp/4829984082/

This is what a typical entry looks like:

https://i.imgur.com/8rCN4gH.jpeg

I'm just a little disappointed that some of my favourite ones are only found on island preserves closed to everybody except researchers!

Hi, a bit late to your post, but I might have some insight since I've studied art in Japan for a little while. To give some context, manga looks like it's read from "back to front" because the text is written from right to left. So, to make the reading flow better, the art is also in a right to left order. However, people nowadays are also used to writing left to right like in English.

To answer your question, most Japanese artists use their sketchbooks from left to right. There isn't a deep meaning to this; it's just that the main sketchbooks sold in Japan has the cover on the left side. I'm guessing some manga artists would use it backwards if they're drafting their manga or something, but people usually use it from left to right. I'll link some examples:

Maruman Sketch Book - standard sketchbook with mid~heavy weight drawing paper.

Maruman CROQUIS - what Japanese people call a "croquis" book. It uses really thin paper so you can do a bunch of quick sketches without worrying about weight or price too much.

There are tons of keycap sets with Japanese legends available on Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, Etsy, etc. such as these and these. Double check before you buy a set, but most Cherry MX compatible sets will fit your HyperX keyboard.

no worries, common early mistake

and just for reference, if you really really WANT to just write kanji and memorize them, it's not going to hurt anything, it's just not necessary in the extreme. i mean i think they're pretty on a calligraphic level and i like practicing writing them, just don't feel compelled is all

if you want a good book on radicals:

https://smile.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268/

I'm assuming you're listening from outside Japan. Unfortunately just a few days before the end of June the JCBAsimul website won't broadcast it's member stations. Radimo is also linked to the JCBA member list.

Try the FM Pura Pura apps [by the Radimo developers] or their browser version. Apart from the internet radio stations one other independent station is shonan beach fm which plays mostly jazz.

Too bad seems Japan doesn't want their radio broadcast outside of the country. Using VPN doesn't seem to fool the system too.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fmplapla.player

Try shadowing (listening while repeating back out loud), it will do wonders for your intonation, rhythm of speech and sense of the kind of language that is expected in conversational Japanese. You can use existing material you might already have such as JapanesePod101 or a dedicated shadowing resource such as this.

Then find yourself an online tutor and work on discussing a certain topic in every lesson.

Also there is a difference between advanced at university or language school. I went through intermediate to advanced at a Japanese language school in Tokyo and thought I was the mother-fucking shit cos I was doing great in class and could handle day to day tasks fairly well. Cue getting a job in Japan and being served a slice of humble pie. Lol. Don't beat yourself up. Keep going. You'll get there. We all struggle.

One from Amazon US.

The author's name is Hajime Takamizawa. List of books from Goodreads.

I highly recommend Japanese cookbooks. I get mine from Amazon Japan, but occasionally I get them from Amazon USA (depends which is cheaper after I factor shipping/taxes).

I've got a couple of cooking manga that were interesting and great as entry-level Japanese reading and a year ago I bought a couple of candy making books. This was one of them: プロのためのわかりやすい和菓子 (ぷのためのわかりやすいわがし・Easy-to-Understand Japanese Sweets for Professiosals) . This is more geared towards someone with experience in candy making, but I also want to add some books on 漬物 (つけもの).

Looks to me like the official app is "Radimo" (レディモ)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.smart_engineering.radimo.player

https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/%E3%83%AC%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%83%A2/id1514041719

There is also a handy app (android, not sure if available for ios) where you can read news in easy Japanese from some of japan's major news outlets:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.eup.jpnews

Personally I learned.. Kana - > grammar - > kanji + vocab

I recommend starting out with the Genki books.. They ease you into the language.. And also have good workbooks..

If you're really serious try getting into online lessons early.

Maintaining what I leant was the difficult part for me since I don't use it everyday. You can use Flashcard software like Anki to train on kanji and vocab. I highly recommend you use Takoboto dictionary, it's amazing, and allows you to export words to Anki.

I also made a small free android app to save and practice on stuff you learn link

Japanese does use prefixes and suffixes to make words from existing ones, but not EVERY syllable has its own intrinsic meaning.

An example of a suffix might be 場 (jō or ba), which means "place". You can get

工場 (kōjō) (craft/construction place = factory)

駐車場 (chūshajō) (park car place = parking lot)

農場 (nōjō) (agriculture place = farm)

売り場 (uriba, not urijō) (selling place = sales counter). This is a good example of "not all syllables have meaning". 売り (uri) means selling. The kanji 売 means to sell, but when it has the Japanese reading (pronounced "u"), usually there are other syllables with it which are written in kana, not kanji. り, "ri", doesn't really have a specific meaning on its own.

Also, there are words that can't be deciphered from their kanji (famously, 馬鹿 (Baka), which is composed of the kanji for horse and deer, but means "idiot"), or aren't even written in kanji. So, like u/Snoo-98592 and u/eruciform commented earlier, you can't just understand words by dissecting them in to their individual kanji.

You might like this book, which explains lots of prefixes and suffixes.

This book doesn't seem like it's for complete beginners so you'd probably need to give him something else first, but I did get recommended this book the other day for people working in Japan. https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09N39MJSV/

We are also in Japan and we don't have any problem buying it. We're not sure why you are having problems.

Here's the link to it on Japanese Amazon. Are you able to buy it here? https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09X47HLS7

sorry, there a several types, i should have linked you one that I used. This is one that I use probably a different brand but same style. you can leave the futon on it to dry while it is folded for storage or keep the futon separate when it is already dried.

Well, those do look a bit fancier than the stuff I bought at whatever local department store happened to be nearby. I don't remember what mine were filled with, but I don't think it was anything exotic. Maybe send them an email and ask?

I don't know about futons, but Amazon.co.jp does ship some stuff to the US. Or you could use a remailer like tensou or leyifan. Something like this?

I just searched "japanese futon" on Amazon and (almost) every single one is below $200!

Mine was almost $200, but it's not cotton-filled, it's just foam. But you're not getting cotton filling unless you spend $300+. Just pick one in your price range on Amazon and give it a try.

Just realize that, no matter what, they're just thin little covered foam pieces lol. It's just something to sleep on!

Watching this Youtube channel (like a Japanese hoarders, kind of) some of the futons literally look to be the thickness of a blanket folded up a couple of times. Very very thin. But it sounds like you already enjoyed the thin bedding!

Can anyone help me read this label? I’m moving to Japan and looking for a bouillon that doesn’t contain corn starch or wheat. I know how to spell them, but I’m having a hard time finding them (or finding they’re not there!) on labels. https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00131DNY0/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?crid=3AN644E9IQ6U9&amp;keywords=%E3%83%96%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A8%E3%83%B3%E9%87%8E%E8%8F%9C&amp;qid=1647204434&amp;sprefix=bouillon+vegetable+%2Caps%2C123&amp;sr=8-6#immersive-view_1647205057381

Once upon a time I used an app called Calligraphy collection by Farigtech. Unfortunately, it's a Chinese app, so you might have to go out of your way to look up the Chinese equivalent of a particular kanji, but it should work if you have either a kyujitai (old form) kanji or a shinjitai (new form) kanji identical to the simplified Chinese version. For example, if you have the character 鉄 (tetsu, "iron"), you'll need to look up its kyujitai form (鐵) and enter that in the search bar.

Here’s an example. There are name books.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/%E8%A5%BF%E6%9D%B1%E7%A4%BE%E7%B7%A8%E9%9B%86%E9%83%A8-ebook/dp/B00QRJ5C10

One other unexpected thing is that the total number of strokes in the name matters to some people.

I am a beginner too! I joined this learning community on the Amino app: http://aminoapps.com/c/japaneseschool It's been really helpful in keeping me motivated and they have detailed lessons on every topic that you can follow along with :) I highly recommend joining

If you're a beginner you should join this community i'm in called Japanese School Amino (JSA) on the Amino app or website. They have lessons and people that can help you all the time http://aminoapps.com/c/japaneseschool

I highly recommend this studying community I am in. Its called Japanese School Amino (JSA) on the Amino app or website. They have beginner lessons (1 each week) on aspects of the language, mostly involving reading and structure of the language. The classes on either Saturday or Sunday are helpful in learning the basics of conversation. And there's ALWAYS someone in the chat who can help answer your questions. Seriously, you should join. http://aminoapps.com/c/japaneseschool

I’ve actually only read the english translation, but here’s the japanese original:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/金井美恵子-ebook/dp/B08TWRW8PF/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=364P84TNSU6QP&amp;keywords=単語集金井&amp;qid=1643809912&amp;sprefix=単語集+金井%2Caps%2C263&amp;sr=8-1

just a note of carefulness - it's impossible to learn radicals and avoid having to still memorize kanji. it can still help with guessing and memorizing kanji, but there's no way around still needing to memorize it. just fyi. common mistake.

for radicals learning, i recommend: https://smile.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Course-Step/dp/1568365268/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kodansha+kanji+learners+course&amp;qid=1643041598&amp;sprefix=kanji+a+learner%2Caps%2C99&amp;sr=8-1

There’s lots of apps for writing practice. Here’s the one I use..

Apple

Android

Although not in English, the following is a book that shows how to play gambling games in Japan:
賭けずに楽しむ日本の賭博ゲーム Japanese gambling games that are fun without betting
Also, I don't know if that work has been translated into English, but Tetsuya Asada is an author who has written many works on gambling, some of which have been made into movies. He is particularly famous for his work on mahjong, but he has also written about other gambling games.
ギャンブル党狼派 Gambling Party Wolf Faction

The above is a collection of his short stories, which includes works depicting the mainstream of yakuza gambling games in the Kansai region, such as "Tehonbiki," and the house rules of mahjong with its enhanced gambling nature.

http://jisho.org/search/%E7%90%86%20%23kanji

It's definitely a common Kanji, apparently number 86 most used in newspapers. I think the most common word with it is 料理, which means cooking. But don't let that throw you off, look here for more words containing it.

Howdy BrettBackpack! I'm not sure if Duolingo itself is saying "なか" when you hit the blue speaker button, but 中 has multiple different readings depending on which kanji it is paired with:

http://jisho.org/search/%23kanji%20中

www.memrise.com is a good place to learn Japanese for absolute beginners.

www.wanikani.com The approach to learning kanji at wanikani is ideal for native english speakers. You will use the concepts learned here for the rest of your life. You don't have to complete the entire thing, just understand the approach to learning.

www.ankiweb.net This is where you will find the most useful resource for learning Japanese. Wait until you are at an intermediate level and are responsible enough to oversee your own learning curriculum before using this app. Your first goal should be to complete the NihongoShark deck (make sure you unhide the koohii1 and koohii2 fields). After that, make a deck comprised of every JLPT vocabulary word and complete that. Tae Kim's deck for grammar is pretty good for learning grammar after that. After all of that, you can basically just add new vocab cards to your deck for every new word that you come across in your daily life.

http://kanjitomo.net/ An extremely useful tool. It scans your monitor and automatically looks up any word that your mouse cursor is hovering over.

http://www.tagaini.net/ A good dictionary application for creating vocab lists. I would recommend using this in conjunction with kanjitomo while you read raw manga/light novels.

Textbooks: Screw them. (Just kidding, but you don't really need them unless you are practicing for the JLPT. Honestly you really only need textbooks for the mock exams.)