Resources

Official Resources

Study Guide
2023 Competition Guide
Line Stickers

NHK News Easy
“A place where you can read NHK news articles converted into easier writing for Japanese learners to understand and learn new vocabulary and grammar while keeping up to date with important events in Japan. Throughout the article, there are definitions for difficult words and furigana for kanji” – Stella, Registration Coordinator

Hinoki Project – Natsume
“I was introduced to this while studying abroad. With Natsume you can enter a Japanese adjective, noun, or verb to see the most common uses. it’s great when you’re not sure whether to use は or が or you just want to better understand contextual differences between words.” – Elece, Progam Assistant

Sambon Juku・三本塾
A Japanese language channel offering tips on how to speak naturally and skits to help teach grammar points and useful phrases. – Aeris, Alumni Coordinator

Hirogaru Japanese・ひろがる日本語
“My teacher had us study from this website in high school. It is a very simple way to read short articles and watch short video clips in Japanese introducing various aspects of Japanese culture.” – Stella

Nihongo no Mori・日本語の森・ Website
A Japanese language learning channel based in Vietnam focused on preparing for the JLPT. They offer grammar overviews, daily live streams, and videos breaking down popular J-Pop songs and analyzing the grammar. – Aeris

Japan 2.0 – Japanese Subculture
A super cool podcast about Japanese pop culture and Sub Culture covering all kinds of weird stuff from camping and hamburgers, to music and video games. – Elece

“Why Study Japanese?” Presentation

PDF

This PowerPoint is from a presentation made to high school Japanese language teachers at the 2014 National Japan Bowl by Amb. John R. Malott, the President of the Japan-America Society of Washington DC. It is aimed at parents, school administrators, and others who question the importance of learning Japanese today. This presentation may be used freely to promote and advocate Japanese language study, but please give proper credit to the Japan-America Society of Washington DC.

Other Resources

Websites

  • Erin’s Challenge
    A Japanese language content library presented by the Japan Foundation featuring skits, culture quizzes, and vocabulary lists
  • News on Japan
    Short articles aggregated from a variety of Japanese news providers
  • Web-Japan
    A collection of information about Japanese culture and trends
  • Jisho.org
    Japanese-English web dictionary that can be used to find definitions, kanji, and even setence
  • Kotobank・コトバンク
    Japanese-Japanese dictionary suitable with definitions and descriptions from various encyclopedias and media dictionaries.
  • Tofugu Japanese Learning Resources
    Japanese resource lists created seasonally by Japanese language and culture blog, Tofugu

Youtube and Podcasts

  • Dogen
    Videos about life in Japan and Japanese language learning and phonetics
  • Life Where I’m From
    Short documentaries about everyday life in Japan and Japanese society
  • Let’s Learn Japanese from Small Talk・Twitter | Vocab Lists
    Short podcast episodes where two women chat about pop culture and daily life in Japanese. Each episode has a vocab list hosted on their blog.
  • The Tofugu Podcast
    A podcast mostly focusing on Japanese language with special attention to particles and linguistic conventions that can be confusing to English learners
  • Kimono Mom
    Japanese cooking videos in Japanese with English subtitles introducing Japanese food with occasional vlogs about daily life in Japan

Textbooks and Print Materials

Have a favorite resource to add to our list? Send us an email at [email protected] and let us know!