Sunday, March 6, 2011

My Japanese learning tools....

Following are the dictionaries or learning tools i use and are available for download in the internet. These softwares can be downloaded in the link provided or by searching google or in my repository below. Always download from source as you can get the latest. Out of the listed programs, only aedict caters to the new system of JLPT levels. I have tried all the below listed programs in Windows XP. The below softwares can work offline once installed. I have concentrated mainly on free tools.

For PC

1) ZKanji - A wonderful dictionary which can be installed with examples. Stroke order of a kanji can be seen. The developers are working to improve it and updates are released often. Kanji can be searched by drawing. This is my favourite dictionary. This ia an excellent dictionary and launch this software if i am going to study Japanese in my PC. A wonderful dictionary. This dictionary can be downloaded from here




2) Tagini Jisho - It is a good dictionary and can be used to study JLPT vocabulary. Initially i used this dictionary and the benefit of this dictionary is that it list the homophones of the word that is searched. It can be downloaded from here



3) JWPCE - This software is a word-processing software and can be used as a dictionary. It can be downloaded from here



4) Aedict - This is android based dictionary and has wonderful flash cards for new JLPT tests. Refer to my post on how to
use it in PCs. This software can be used in both Android phones and in PCs also.

5) Ace Kanji Workout - It is a very good tool for learning Kanji. The good thing about this tool is that it shows Kanji compounds
and can be downloaded from here - This is a free software.




6) Read write Kanji is from Declan Software and got lots of features as it is a paid software. Trial version can be downloaded from here

7) Kanji trainer pen pen is a funny application which facilitates in pracitising kanjis and it is a free software. It can be downloaded from here




8) Nihogo Flash is a flash card program to practise vocabulary for all levels of JLPT and has options to shuffle the card also. I use it very often. It runs on .net framework. It can be downloaded from here




9) I hate Kanji is a wonderful program to practise and learn Kanji and vocabulary. For each Kanji, it displays Kanji compounds which will be of great help for learning Kanjis. It needs Java runtime to run. It can be downloaded from here



10) JFC Flash cards - It is good flash card program to learn vocabulary, particle, kanji and grammar. It is available here




11) Nicolas Fournel - This program is to practise and has flash cards also for level 3 and level 4 vocabularies. It is available here. It has a program to practice Kana also.




12) JDrill - Kanji learning program and the UI may not be very appealing but you can get conversant with Kanji's you studied elsewhere. It is available here




13) NihonDrill - here




14) Kanaquiz - This software is for practising Kana and can be downloaded from here

15) KanjiGold - This is good software to practise Kanji with compounds and can be downloaded from here



16) Anki - Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. It will be useful for learing vocabularies of a new language. It uses SRS(Space Repetition System). More information can be found in here. Lots of JLPT related anki files are here which is created by different users. You have to download the files and import into your anki. You can start practising the vocabularies. Anki also has different releases for iPhone and andriod phones. Once a anki project is created, it can be copied into Android phones and can be used to practise on the go.



17) Mnemosyne - This also based on SRS and more info can be found at here. You can download mnemosyne cards from the same website at location



18) Eng - Jap Dictionary - This is an open source dictionary to search from English to Japanese and has search with examples. It can be downloaded from here.It has Kanji dissection also.


19) Excel@Japanese - This is a simple yet wonderful to study kanji and vocabulary. It is written wonderfully using Excel Macros and still small in size. It can be downloaded from here.It has tests also.

20) This dictionary by KingSoft is nice with menus in Japanese. This will give the opportunity to familiarize working with Japanese menus and got examples also. This can be downloaded from here



21) JISHOP. This is wonderful tool to list Kanji compounds. There is paid as well as free versions. The free version is able to list compounds of 1096 Kanjis which will be suffice for upto JLPT2. It can be downloaded from here.


22) KanjiGymLight is a tool based on Java. It has lessons based on RTK Kanji book. This is an excellent tool to practice stroke order and has stroke order diagrams to learn also. This is a wonderful tool. It can be downloaded from here



23) MBKanji - This tool can be used to practice Kanji. But you should get used to the UI. It can be downloaded from here



24) Rincevent - This is a wonderful program like Anki but set of predefined cards can be imported. It has vocab list with pictures. As pictures stand in mind easily, this software can serve as a wonderful learning tool for vocabulary. It can be downloaded from here. The related cards can be downloaded from here



25) Makoto Chan's Dictionary - This is a colourful dictionary where you can search Kanji and meaning. It can be downloaded from here



26) My latest wonderful find is JQuickTrans. When you search, it gives the compounds, homonyms, onyomi and kunyomi. I have decided to use it with ZKanji for stroke order. An excellent dictionary and learning tool. It can be downloaded from here




For Cellphones / Smartphones

1) padict - Was designed for palm OS but can be used with windows mobile using StyleTap platform. Earlier when i was using a Windows phone, i installed this on top of sytletap platform. It is a simple dictionary where you can check words on the go.

2) Suiteki - It is based on J2ME and is a mobile application based on Java. It can be downloaded from here. This application will have a bit of problem in android phones where key configurations are not working correctly. But in windows phone works fine. It can work in any phone as far as there is a J2ME runtime which most of the phones have.

3) KanjiGymLight - This is one of the software available for Palm OS and i haven't tried this personally. Since its PC counterpart seems useful, so this should be.

Online tools

1) Applet based application for Kanji flashcard - http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ik2r-myr/kanji/kanji1a.htm. This has an iPhone version also which can be downloaded from iTunes website.

Finally, a wonderful site with lots of information and quizzes is here

2) Flashcard application to learn and practise the most used 500 kanjis is here

For JLPT N5 and N4, there are lots of software applications available, but N3 and N2, the Anki and Mnemosyne can only be relied on heavily. Pls. comment if you come across with any other learning tools than listed above.

My repository is here

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8 comments:

  1. Check out some of the Japanese learning apps at http://nihongoup.com/applications/

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  2. As i have specified in my blog, i have mainly focused on free tools and not paid ones..

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  3. Wow, there are some really good apps here. :)

    Jonathan

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  4. anything for blackberry phones?

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  5. You can use StyleTap platform on Blackberry and install padict.

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  6. I wish I had found this site earlier! どうもありがとうございました!

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  7. Thank you so much Kuppusamy San. This is really helpful!

    ReplyDelete