Primary Sources
- Asahi ShimbunOne of the five national newspapers in Japan. The newspaper had an alliance with the International Herald Tribune, which is owned by The New York Times.
- Yomiuri ShimbunA Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. Yomiuri Shimbun is credited with having the largest newspaper circulation in the world. The Yomiuri Shimbun is conservative and sometimes considered a center-right newspaper.
- Aozora BunkoBegun in 1997, is an online collection of thousands of Japanese language works of fiction and non-fiction, including out-of-copyright books or works that the authors have made freely available. It is widely regarded as the Japanese equivalent of Project Gutenberg.
Toolbox
- Aozora KindleConverts texts from Aozora Bunko into Kindle-ready pdf files.
- Reading Tutor (Reading Tutorial Toolbox)The Reading Tutor was designed to help JFL/JSL learners improve their reading skills in Japanese. This system was developed specifically to help learners study written Japanese at their own pace, in their own way. Dr. Baba says this is amazing!
- RikaikunCHROME ADD ON:Japanese to English/German/French/Russian dictionary. Just hover the mouse on top of a word, and a popup appears. Automatically de-inflects verbs and adjectives. Detailed kanji view.
- RikaikunCHROME ADD ON: This is a port of rikaichan to chrome. When you hover over Japanese words they'll be translated in a pop up. If you hit shift/enter, you'll see some information about the first Kanji.
First- & Second-Year Japanese
- Student Resources for Nakama 1 @ 2Showing the pronunciations and stroke orders of the hiragana and katakana syllabaries and Chinese characters (kanji).
Study aid for new vocabulary. - Lab Manual for Listening Assignments (JPN 110)Campus access only
- Lab Manual for Listening Assignments (JPN 120)Campus access only
- Lab Manual for Listening Assignments (JPN 201-202)Campus access only
Dictionaries 辞典 字典（じてん）
(used with permission from SharonDomier, UMass Amherst)
These tools help turn your mouse into a dictionary. It is very addictive and can really help speed up your reading - but the lack of pain may mean that you don't remember kanji or words as well as when you look them up one by one.
- Reading Tutor (Reading Tutorial Toolbox)Choose the JP->JP conversion to get English explanations of Japanese terms and sample sentences.
- RikaiYou have 2 choices, either input a URL and Rikai will follow you wherever you go on the web or copy and paste in text to see readings and definitions.
- Jim Breen's WWWJDICThis is a favorite of many because of the extensive word lists. You can also look up kanji by a variety of indexes.
Ramen
Killer Apps
- Rodoku ShitsujiThe "Rodoku Shitsuji" (Narrating Butler) reads aloud 27 short stories. You can purchase more texts through the "store."
- Rodoku ShojoRodoku Shojo - Story Time Girl - is a program focused on “entertainment for readers,” in which a girl in a school uniform recites a story just for you!
- Voicetra+A speech translation application for travel phrases which can translate spoken phrases into different languages.
Collections of Dictionaries
I think that these are my top picks for free online dictionaries. You may have other suggestions, please let me know and I'll add them.
- KotobankVery nice collection of more than 50 dictionaries, each one provides source information.
- WeblioCollection of dictionaries: kokugo, ruigo, waei/eiwa, shugo (sign).
- Yahoo! Japan DictionariesThis set of dictionaries (J, thesaurus, JE, EJ,) can be searched individually or all at once. It also offers two dictionaries for J and JE/EJ so you can see variations.
- On'yaku no heya 音訳の部屋This is a very interesting collection of resources for people who read aloud to the blind. It includes a lot of readings that people would just guess at if they were reading silently, therefore a good tool for Japanese language learners.
Print Dictionaries
The Kanji dictionaryCall Number: Reference Collection PL677.5 .S625 1996
The Oxford-Duden pictorial English-Japanese dictionaryCall Number: Reference Collection PL679 .P29 1983
New Japanese-English character dictionaryCall Number: Reference Collection PL677.5 .N49 1990
Kodansha's Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary by Call Number: Ref PE1130.J3 S43 2006ISBN: 9784770018083Publication Date: 2006-05-12Long awaited, this dictionary is the most comprehensive and practical English-Japanese dictionary (for native-English-speaking learners of Japanese) in existence. With 22,000 entries and 19,000 sample sentences and phrases, given in both English and Japanese, this dictionary does what none before it has: it shows precisely how Japanese is actually used in everyday, real-life conversation, while providing an unprecedented number of English entry words and Japanese equivalents.Suitable for learners at all levels.
