Japanese Language

Apparently the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation decides one of these every year.

This year, 熊 (kuma) was selected, meaning bear. For whatever reason, Japan has had a bunch of bear issues lately.

I'm regularly reading Gigazine for general news articles, the Japanese Wikipedia page, and Sorae for pictures and news about space, but I'm looking to broaden my light reading sources. What are your go-to or favorite websites?

I'm lerning kanji using WaniKani and a set of cards for Ankidroid for offline use. They are giving these weird names to kanji and radicals and I was wondering if those were correct? I feel like I'm learning the wrong names for these characters or their meaning... This is just one example. I came across another one called "mohawk". That doesn't make sense to me. Or am I missing something? Is it a learning technique?

As a long time Japanese learner, I always wanted there to be a simple online trainer for learning kana, Kanji and vocabulary - like Anki, but for the web. Originally, I created the website for personal use simply as a better alternative to kana pro and realkana, and as an alternative to Chase Colburn's Kanji Study app, because Kanji Study was pretty complicated for me to use as a beginner and didn't have a simpler way of just grinding Kanji like you can grind the kana on kana pro.

I'm doing this because I grew tired of all the subscriptions and paywalls. I want to make the most user-friendly, customizable, aesthetic and fun platform for learning Japanese currently available. Accessible to all, fully open-source and free forever - and driven not by profit, but made by the community, for the community.

We already have more than 30+ active contributors from all over the world, and we really want to make the first definitive 100% free, open-source platform for learning Japanese - in contrast to most other apps for learning Japanese, which are often paid and monetized aggressively.

If you're interested, you can check it out here: https://kanadojo.com/ ^ ^

GitHub if you're a dev and interested in contributing: https://github.com/lingdojo/kana-dojo

The app is still in its early alpha stages - but with your help, we can make it even better and give the Japanese learning community its first completely free, open-source and community-driven learning platform! どうもありがとうございます!

This is a collection of Japanese lessons that don't rely on translation. Instead, it shows a picture to establish a concept, then builds on that.

It's based on the ideas behind Lingue Latina Per Se Illustrata (LLPSI).

I don't know how useful this is compared to other methods, but I think it's a neat thing to check out.

ついにごっかんつかめちゃうんだな!

カードイーリーダーって、新登場なのだ!

おなじみのキャラクターが大集合! (0

ハムタロウカードイーリーダーからできるオリジナルゲームが盛りだくさん!

キャラクターのプロフィールも調べられるよ!

3つマップにセットすれば、 素敵なアルバムに大変身でしょ!

カードイーリーダーに通せば、もっと楽しめる!

ハムタロウカードイー

みんな、集めるのだ!

Once again google has cooked up a new keyboard design

to catch up those who aren't aware, the overwhelming majority of native Japanese speakers use 12-key flick input to type on smartphones, as it evolved from the input on flip phone (garakei) hardware keypads. it also requires less keystrokes => faster than typing romaji, once accustomed.

for context, the most widely recommended Japanese keyboard on android has been Google Gboard, MS Swiftkey, etc. tbh, these are very good as a keyboard, but unfortunately also great at collecting personal private data. the previous open source choice Mozc (created by a Google from a gentler timeline) has been outdated since before the pandemic.

thankfully, now there are at least ~~3~~4 open source projects working on east Asian language (primarily Japanese) flick keyboards for mobile devices:

スミレ (thanks to stanman for the link) is privacy-respecting and has the essential features one would expect. also available via play store if you prefer.

FCITX, is presumably working on it.

FUTO keyboard, and Florisboard

~~so far, i think FUTO seems the furthest along, with ~~ For FUTO fans, there's a nightly build for android available already. if you try this, remember to import the kanji conversion dictionary file linked in this comment since it was excluded from the apk to reduce file size.

this is very exciting, as only a year ago, there was hardly any mention of work being done. the only solution i could find for modern smartphones was by a Graphene OS forum user who had recompiled the latest binary of Mozc (from 2019!) while splicing in modern components for those that had become outdated. the result was janky to say the least.

edit: updated courtesy of stanman

if anyone knows other open source Japanese keyboards (that are up to date, i.e. not original Mozc, and privacy-respecting, i.e. not Gboard), especially with 12-key flick, please share!

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/46133193

Happy Casual Tuesday!

彁 is a Japanese "ghost character". Its meaning is unknown and it doesn't appear in the famous 18th century Kangxi Dictionary of Chinese characters. It was most likely just created by mistake during the process of computerizing Japanese writing.

Guys. Why are numbers so god damn complicated in Japanese? lo!!!

Ok ok in English and other languages we have different names for numbers whether it's one, two, three, or first, second, third, etc. But, that's about it. In Japanese you have to pronounce numbers in so many different ways!

I need help! How do I remember what to use? Heck, I don't even know what the other numbers are! Ok so I know the regular numbers, plus N-ばん for number one, number two, etc. But what's "first", "second", "third" etc?

And what about dates? Age? Inanimate things? Things that are alive, whether they are small or big?

What are some good resources or good mnemonics that you use to remember all of that?

こんにちは！

私はカナダ人です。

１月から、私は日本語をべんきょうしています。すぐ日本へいくつもりですから。

このコミュニティでしつもんしなもいいですか。

私はことばとかんじをべんきょうしなければいけません。たすけがひつようです。

よろしくおねがいします。

Arcadia was a Japanese magazine covering arcade games. All of the issues are available now on archive.org.

The main focus is on Japanese film, but we also explore the visual arts, music, dance, fashion, architecture, food, and much more. Every autumn, we take a selection of films from the programme to Amsterdam for a weekend of screening the best, the weirdest, and the most unexpected cinema from Japan.

• 24 – 28 September 2025 at Rotterdam
• 2 – 5 October 2025 at Amsterdam

I thought this film festival (with movies in Japanese) might be of interest to this community but if it's too off-topic, let me know.

The Cultural Affairs Agency has finalized a draft proposal to adopt the Hepburn style as the unified standard of romaji, or romanized Japanese, primarily due its closer resemblance to English pronunciation.

[……]

Currently, schools [in Japan] primarily teach the kunrei style in accordance with the existing Cabinet announcement. However, the Hepburn style is widely used in society.

My school is about to start and I am still working. I am just stressing out. Japanese is like a bottomless well.

I am spending way more time than I should learning Japanese and ignoring other things.

I have no choice but to stop learning Japanese. I don't live in Japan. I probably will never use Japanese.

I am so sorry, sensei.

“goo dictionary” is a free dictionary service launched in 1999 by goo, a portal site operated by NTT DoCoMo.

The service offered Japanese language dictionaries, English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, thesaurus dictionaries, four-character idioms, kanji dictionaries, and terminology dictionaries from Shogakukan, Sanseido, Gakken, and other language dictionaries and terminology collections.

Goo announced this service will end by 25th June, after 26 years.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/43232519

I had a couple of issues of this 3 decades ago (I think Tower Records in the UK sometimes had it).

A magazine for English-speaking learners of Japanese, using snippets from manga popular in Japan (not just the usual suspects known abroad). Explaining vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, writing systems, culture, politics, history and more, in a fun and memorable way.

The full run from 1990 to 1997 has been uploaded by Mangajin, Inc. to the Internet Archive.

Collection on Archive.org

• https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Mangajin%2C+Inc.%22

Wikipedia

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangajin

Found via Language Log

• https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=68979

Editor's note from Volume #1, June 1990

The MANGAJIN project has been brewing for quite some time now, but when the Japanese language “boom” started around the end of the 80's, we decided that the time was right to put the plan into action. In order to develop the concept, we talked to a lot of people and did as much research as we could, but it was impossible to do any real quantitative research. Now that MANGAJIN has been launched, we hope to use it as a research instrument to find out more about what type of material you want to see in this publication.

When we select material for publication in MANGAJIN, we consider suitability for language study — we look for a representative mix of slang and polite speech forms, and for sentence structures likely to be useful. We try to pick material which, although “comic” in nature, reflects popular Japanese culture and values, The final criterion, however, is whether the story has entertainment value.

Because so many people seem to be interested in Japanese for business reasons, we selected a business-related story (Hotel, by Shotaro Ishinomori) as our feature manga for this issue, but we're open to suggestions for future issues. There is certainly plenty to choose from in the world of manga—it's estimated that comic books and magazines accounted for more than 30% of all books and magazines published in Japan in 1988. Let us know what you'd like to see.

Although preferences vary, most people agree that manga are one of the few ways that students of Japanese can access “real” colloquial Japanese and get a glimpse of contemporary Japanese pop culture. Because we provide the readings for the Japanese text in English letters, along with translations and notes, you won't have to spend so much time flipping through the kanji dictionary that you lose interest in the story.

1 hope you find your own method of using and enjoying MANGAJIN, and please let us hear from you.