Finally, here we are at the true purpose of this blog: introducing and reviewing "learn Japanese" websites.
Today we'll start with The Japanese Page (TJP).
First, I want to say I am using the office's laptop to view this page, and it won't let me update IE to 7, nor will it play nice with Firefox. I blame my boss for never running an anti-virus on here, so if what I say seems to be different than what you see on your own computers, I apologize in advance.
First impression of the main homepage is cluttered. I seriously don't know where to start. First, half the page is taken up with an ad from the main supporter of TJP (a Japanese pen pal website) . It's a giant text promotional ad calling people to buy a membership to the pen pal site. Takes up a large part of the screen, and runs into the next part of the site. Not sure if it's an introduction to the site or an ad for reading a story in Japanese while listening to it being read in Japanese. Looks like both together.
There's also a login box, a sign up box for a newsletter, a poll, links to articles, ads everywhere, a shoutbox, a list of top posters, etc. And it's all meshed in with poorly placed ads. I can't tell what image is a link to an article and which is an advertisement. One also has to scroll to the bottom of the page to find links to articles separated by level. There are links to the normal website fare of a chat, forum, videos, audio and the like up top, but that's the only thing I find useful on the entire front site.
Clicking on the FAQ link, one has to scroll through rules for the forums before even getting to the main FAQ. However, the FAQ is easy to use, once you get to it, and offers help on how to install the necessary files to both read and type in Japanese on your home computer. It also offers, if you scroll though, some good links to find downloadable audio files and pen pal sites. There are some basic questions about Japanese that are answered in the FAQ, but they don't seem to fit into the section of the FAQ where they are placed.
As for the site's lessons page, this may be the page set up the best on the entire site. Lessons are listed in order of Beginner, Grammar, Kanji, Culture, Vocab, General and fun stuff. It's set up really simply and is easy to figure out what is what, but is it all beginner level stuff? What happened to intermediate and advanced? Does the website not offer those? One may never know from just looking at this page. Clicking on the Beginner link, the beginner "lessons" are no more than a collection of flash cards, video and audio clips explaining simple grammatical concepts or vocabulary, and downloadable podcasts. There seems to be no real set path, no "Try this first" or "Do this next". One just starts with whatever one wants to, it seems. The New to Japanese Advice page gives some hints at where to start, what textbooks you might want to consider, and some reasons to learn Japanese, and finally at the very end it gives a "Try this next" link. There is no real guidance or rhythm to the page or the lessons, but instead encourages visitors to log in and join in the forums, where you can talk to other learning Japanese from TJP and other means, and possibly find help. There are some good links to other sites for resources, but nothing concrete.
Following the link to their 15 Minute Japanese Lesson, however, does give a good introduction to the basics of the language, even if all at once. It's a good page to see what you're getting yourself into, but once again doesn't lead to anywhere. The Japanese Page leaves it completely up to the learner to decide what order and how they want to learn. While this can be beneficial for those who like learning things sporadically, this can be detrimental as learners have no real path to follow in learning. Once you learn how to read and write Hiragana and Katakana, where do you go to learn basic grammar? What if you don't care about reading and writing, but need to get some basic conversation skills down for when those Japanese visitors at work come by next month? There doesn't seem to be any real flow.
The Hiragana and Katakana pages, however, are quite well set up. They break the two writing systems into chapters to make them easier to learn than cramming them all at you at once. It also has sound files to hear how each character is supposed to be pronounced so you can practice mimicking the sounds yourself without guessing what they're supposed to sound like. There are also quizzes and flash card links (only on the Hiragana page) that one can use to test themselves. Overall, the set up of these two pages can be very useful in learning and mastering two of the writing systems in Japanese.
Moving onto the Grammar page, while the Lessons page lists four categories of 3kyuu Grammar (What happened to 4kyuu?), 100 Grammar Points, Word Order, and Particles, clicking on the link to the main page just gives a long, uncategorized list of the available "articles" and lessons within the grammar section of the website. There are two large image links for the 100 Grammar Points section and the 3kyuu grammar section that actually aren't that bad. The 100 Grammar Points is split into 8 chapters, and each chapter is further split into 12-13 subsections, many of which do have some sort of relation between themselves. The 3kyuu page, however, is a bit lacking and is just one long list of links, with no real organization it seems.
Out of all the pages up until now, the Hiragana and Katakana pages were set up the best, by far. However, the Kanji section definitely blows them out of the water. The top of the page offers links to a "Kanji-a-Day node and a Kanji Dictionary via TJP, as well as a small link menu to different sections of the Kanji page. While the link menu is slightly confusing, it's easy to skip over and scroll to the main gist of the site, the kanji lists for all four levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Levels 4 through 2 offer a list of all the kanji in that level, different subcategories of kanji (usually containing 20 kanji each), quizzes on each set of 20 kanji, a PDF file of all the kanji, a randomizer and flashcards. Level 4 also offers a test on all 80. Sadly, the Level 1 page is unfinished, and only offers about 80% of the kanji required for that level of the proficiency test.
Back at the main Kanji page, under the link to the 4 levels of kanji, there are several useful links, such as stroke order, kanji of Japanese origin, reversible kanji combinations, and country names in kanji. All of these actually can be very useful and are probably one of the best things the whole website has to offer.
After the Kanji page, nothing else lives up. The Vocabulary page is just like grammar, and offers just a giant list of different articles in no particular order. While there do seem to be some useful articles, you might have to search and read through several non-related things before finding what you want. Same with the Culture page. While there is a lot of information, some of which is quite interesting, there's just no order. General Lessons just seems to combine a little bit of everything, mainly from the vocab and culture pages. The Fun page just seems to be a conglomerate of everything that didn't fit into the other pages of "lessons". It does have some quizzes and unusual-but-useful vocab lists, but is mainly just...stuff.
Glancing at the Video page, this may also be up there on the same level as their Kanji page was. Videos are arranged in order of level or subject, with several continuing series of videos. Each section also has three videos shown so you can get a brief idea of what each section involves, making it a bit easier to navigate. However, those with slower computers, such as this laptop, may be in for a wait while all the videos load up. The Audio section offers some audio-only versions of several of the videos, as well as audio files of different traditional songs mentioned throughout the website. There are also links to some Beginner-only Podcasts, and several audio lessons. I'm intrigued mainly by the list of traditional folktales they have for download. These wouldn't be a bad thing to download for real listening practice.
For those who create an account on the site, there are also member-run study groups, forums to ask for advice and help, and user-posted blogs. The groups seem to be their own forum where only members of that particular group can post. They're more to bring people at the same stage of learning together rather than help, it seems. While there are thousands of members in several of the groups, the group with the highest post count only has 34 posts. Seems the action is all in the forums, which, frankly, I am afraid to wander into. I will let you guys decide on that for yourselves.
As a Japanese teacher, I think this site does have a lot to offer, but the set-up is lacking in organization and flow. The kanji lists are useful, and the audio files may be a great way to practice listening skills, but there just doesn't seem to be enough meaningful content. Most of the content seems user-created and is frankly quite amateur. There are other places to get the same information, but more up-front and easier to use.
All in all, I say it's a confusing site to start with, and a confusing site to look for resources. If I had to give it a grade, I'd say no more than a C. It has potential, but is to confusing and tries to do too much all at once with no order whatsoever.
Today we'll start with The Japanese Page (TJP).
First, I want to say I am using the office's laptop to view this page, and it won't let me update IE to 7, nor will it play nice with Firefox. I blame my boss for never running an anti-virus on here, so if what I say seems to be different than what you see on your own computers, I apologize in advance.
First impression of the main homepage is cluttered. I seriously don't know where to start. First, half the page is taken up with an ad from the main supporter of TJP (a Japanese pen pal website) . It's a giant text promotional ad calling people to buy a membership to the pen pal site. Takes up a large part of the screen, and runs into the next part of the site. Not sure if it's an introduction to the site or an ad for reading a story in Japanese while listening to it being read in Japanese. Looks like both together.
There's also a login box, a sign up box for a newsletter, a poll, links to articles, ads everywhere, a shoutbox, a list of top posters, etc. And it's all meshed in with poorly placed ads. I can't tell what image is a link to an article and which is an advertisement. One also has to scroll to the bottom of the page to find links to articles separated by level. There are links to the normal website fare of a chat, forum, videos, audio and the like up top, but that's the only thing I find useful on the entire front site.
Clicking on the FAQ link, one has to scroll through rules for the forums before even getting to the main FAQ. However, the FAQ is easy to use, once you get to it, and offers help on how to install the necessary files to both read and type in Japanese on your home computer. It also offers, if you scroll though, some good links to find downloadable audio files and pen pal sites. There are some basic questions about Japanese that are answered in the FAQ, but they don't seem to fit into the section of the FAQ where they are placed.
As for the site's lessons page, this may be the page set up the best on the entire site. Lessons are listed in order of Beginner, Grammar, Kanji, Culture, Vocab, General and fun stuff. It's set up really simply and is easy to figure out what is what, but is it all beginner level stuff? What happened to intermediate and advanced? Does the website not offer those? One may never know from just looking at this page. Clicking on the Beginner link, the beginner "lessons" are no more than a collection of flash cards, video and audio clips explaining simple grammatical concepts or vocabulary, and downloadable podcasts. There seems to be no real set path, no "Try this first" or "Do this next". One just starts with whatever one wants to, it seems. The New to Japanese Advice page gives some hints at where to start, what textbooks you might want to consider, and some reasons to learn Japanese, and finally at the very end it gives a "Try this next" link. There is no real guidance or rhythm to the page or the lessons, but instead encourages visitors to log in and join in the forums, where you can talk to other learning Japanese from TJP and other means, and possibly find help. There are some good links to other sites for resources, but nothing concrete.
Following the link to their 15 Minute Japanese Lesson, however, does give a good introduction to the basics of the language, even if all at once. It's a good page to see what you're getting yourself into, but once again doesn't lead to anywhere. The Japanese Page leaves it completely up to the learner to decide what order and how they want to learn. While this can be beneficial for those who like learning things sporadically, this can be detrimental as learners have no real path to follow in learning. Once you learn how to read and write Hiragana and Katakana, where do you go to learn basic grammar? What if you don't care about reading and writing, but need to get some basic conversation skills down for when those Japanese visitors at work come by next month? There doesn't seem to be any real flow.
The Hiragana and Katakana pages, however, are quite well set up. They break the two writing systems into chapters to make them easier to learn than cramming them all at you at once. It also has sound files to hear how each character is supposed to be pronounced so you can practice mimicking the sounds yourself without guessing what they're supposed to sound like. There are also quizzes and flash card links (only on the Hiragana page) that one can use to test themselves. Overall, the set up of these two pages can be very useful in learning and mastering two of the writing systems in Japanese.
Moving onto the Grammar page, while the Lessons page lists four categories of 3kyuu Grammar (What happened to 4kyuu?), 100 Grammar Points, Word Order, and Particles, clicking on the link to the main page just gives a long, uncategorized list of the available "articles" and lessons within the grammar section of the website. There are two large image links for the 100 Grammar Points section and the 3kyuu grammar section that actually aren't that bad. The 100 Grammar Points is split into 8 chapters, and each chapter is further split into 12-13 subsections, many of which do have some sort of relation between themselves. The 3kyuu page, however, is a bit lacking and is just one long list of links, with no real organization it seems.
Out of all the pages up until now, the Hiragana and Katakana pages were set up the best, by far. However, the Kanji section definitely blows them out of the water. The top of the page offers links to a "Kanji-a-Day node and a Kanji Dictionary via TJP, as well as a small link menu to different sections of the Kanji page. While the link menu is slightly confusing, it's easy to skip over and scroll to the main gist of the site, the kanji lists for all four levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Levels 4 through 2 offer a list of all the kanji in that level, different subcategories of kanji (usually containing 20 kanji each), quizzes on each set of 20 kanji, a PDF file of all the kanji, a randomizer and flashcards. Level 4 also offers a test on all 80. Sadly, the Level 1 page is unfinished, and only offers about 80% of the kanji required for that level of the proficiency test.
Back at the main Kanji page, under the link to the 4 levels of kanji, there are several useful links, such as stroke order, kanji of Japanese origin, reversible kanji combinations, and country names in kanji. All of these actually can be very useful and are probably one of the best things the whole website has to offer.
After the Kanji page, nothing else lives up. The Vocabulary page is just like grammar, and offers just a giant list of different articles in no particular order. While there do seem to be some useful articles, you might have to search and read through several non-related things before finding what you want. Same with the Culture page. While there is a lot of information, some of which is quite interesting, there's just no order. General Lessons just seems to combine a little bit of everything, mainly from the vocab and culture pages. The Fun page just seems to be a conglomerate of everything that didn't fit into the other pages of "lessons". It does have some quizzes and unusual-but-useful vocab lists, but is mainly just...stuff.
Glancing at the Video page, this may also be up there on the same level as their Kanji page was. Videos are arranged in order of level or subject, with several continuing series of videos. Each section also has three videos shown so you can get a brief idea of what each section involves, making it a bit easier to navigate. However, those with slower computers, such as this laptop, may be in for a wait while all the videos load up. The Audio section offers some audio-only versions of several of the videos, as well as audio files of different traditional songs mentioned throughout the website. There are also links to some Beginner-only Podcasts, and several audio lessons. I'm intrigued mainly by the list of traditional folktales they have for download. These wouldn't be a bad thing to download for real listening practice.
For those who create an account on the site, there are also member-run study groups, forums to ask for advice and help, and user-posted blogs. The groups seem to be their own forum where only members of that particular group can post. They're more to bring people at the same stage of learning together rather than help, it seems. While there are thousands of members in several of the groups, the group with the highest post count only has 34 posts. Seems the action is all in the forums, which, frankly, I am afraid to wander into. I will let you guys decide on that for yourselves.
As a Japanese teacher, I think this site does have a lot to offer, but the set-up is lacking in organization and flow. The kanji lists are useful, and the audio files may be a great way to practice listening skills, but there just doesn't seem to be enough meaningful content. Most of the content seems user-created and is frankly quite amateur. There are other places to get the same information, but more up-front and easier to use.
All in all, I say it's a confusing site to start with, and a confusing site to look for resources. If I had to give it a grade, I'd say no more than a C. It has potential, but is to confusing and tries to do too much all at once with no order whatsoever.
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