Not even a week has gone by since my last post, and here you guys get another!
Today, despite the rainy, dreary weather, I'm going to review what looks like it has the potential to be a very good site to learn kanji from.
Kanji-A-Day.com is just what it says it is, a different kanji is featured every day for learners. While some other places will have a word-of-the-day or a kanji-of-the-day, they are usually just a random word picked out of a dictionary, with no concern for the learner's level. I, myself, have a gadget on my iGoogle homepage that is a Japanese word-a-day thing. Today happens to be a word/kanji I did not know previously, but other days it will have words I learned 10 years ago when I first started Japanese. There's no way to customize it to different levels of study, which would make it a truly awesome feature.
Kanji-A-Day.com, on the other hand, does allow for customization, to a point. Visitors to the site can choose whether they want to see the kanji-of-the-day for any of the four levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. This is great because then beginners don't get bombarded with kanji way out of the league, and more proficient users don't have to deal with the same kanji they've known for years. By creating a login for the site, you can even make the site more personalized, and you can store your own vocab/kanji lists for further study later.
Okay, more in depth on this site, what does it offer besides kanji-a-day?
Well, for starters, there's a handy-dandy Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary lookup right at the top of the site. It takes romaji or kana for the Japanese lookup, which makes it more useful than using a translate site like Google Translate or Babelfish.
Now, for the actual kanji-a-day part, it not only gives you the kanji and English translation, but also the kunyomi and onyomi readings. Underneath all of the readings and definitions, most kanji (sadly not all) have an animated GIF showing the stroke order of the kanji, followed by a step-by-step diagram of the strokes. The thing I like about this GIF and stroke order diagram is not only do they know the order of strokes, but also the beginning of each stroke is orange so you know where each line starts! I don't think I've ever seen that anywhere before. Books and charts will usually have an arrow showing the direction of the strokes, or nothing at all as you learn the basic rules for stroke order. For those with no real knowledge of stroke order, this is pretty useful. Following stroke order makes you characters look so much better.
Under the diagrams gives you a button to add the kanji to your study list, if you happened to be logged in, then offers several useful combinations. The cool thing about these combinations is, every time I flip through the different levels, the combinations change! Occasionally there's even a "more" link at the bottom right so you can see more combinations. And just like with the kanji itself, there are checkboxes next to each combination so you can add them to a vocab list if you so please.
Another nifty thing the site offers is a kanji-a-day e-mail, once again tailored to the four levels of the JLPT. There's also a vocab-a-day if you want to learn regular vocab as well. Both of these are offered as "trials", which seem to be a month or so of free e-mails. If you'd like to continue, you have to sign up and pay for "premium" which offers not only the daily e-mails, but also quizzes and other study resources to help you study at your own pace, at your own level. The "premium" program costs only $9.99 and it seems they customizable with the kanji/vocab lists you make on the site, ad-free, and are unlimited. They're also working on adding in customizable feeds and a kanji-by-radical dictionary. Not bad for only $10 a year. That's less than a dollar a month, which is affordable for just about anyone.
If you like your XML Feeds, they also offer daily feeds for each of the four levels. You can get your kanji fix just about anywhere with this site!
For true beginners, the site also recommends two workbooks for learning hiragana and katakana, as well as a kanji-a-day practice calendar-pad-thing, which actually looks quite intriguing. There are also pages with hiragana and katakana charts that contain very brief introduction to both scripts. But, as it is a page concentrating on kanji, there isn't much other than that.
Another interesting thing the site offers is a list of the 100 most use kanji on the Internet! Each one is a clickable link to a dictionary page that offers readings, stroke order diagrams, and combinations. It's actually a cool feature I haven't seen before, and is probably very useful to people who browse Japanese websites and blogs regularly.
The site also offers a decent list of textbooks and workbooks to help you learn hiragana, katakana and kanji on your own. The lists consists of books and study materials that appeal to all different types of learners, which is great. You can choose a book that fits to your study style.
Under the textbook link is a very useful link to information about the JLPT. It outlines the point breakdown of the test, and gives a useful like to applying for the test in the US. There's also links to kanji and vocab lists for all four levels, which is really helpful. From the lists you can even add in kanji and vocab to your personalized lists, if you stumble upon some kanji you didn't know.
Oh wow, I know this is late, but I just totally noticed the kanji dictionary field on the upper right corner of the site! You can look up kanji by either the English, reading, copy-pasting the kanji itself, or even the stroke count! That's actually kind of nifty. There aren't many sites that allow kanji lookup by just stroke count.
Overall, I have to say this is the best site I've found yet. It's simple, easy-to-use, and offers a lot of different features. Reading back through my review, I don't think I found a single thing wrong, but then again I haven't browsed through all of the kanji to check for mistakes. I think this site could be very useful to anyone looking for a supplement to their kanji learning, or even looking for a place to start learning kanji on their own.
I think this in combination with the Anki flashcard program I talked about a few posts ago would definitely prepare anyone for the writing-vocabulary and reading sections of the JLPT.
If I had to rate on a scale of 1-10, I'd say a solid 8, possibly a 9 considering how well organized and how easy-to-use the site on a whole is. One day I'll have to create a login and check out how well the personalized kanji/vocab lists work, and check out their forums. This site could very well be a 10 if there aren't too many bugs.
Today, despite the rainy, dreary weather, I'm going to review what looks like it has the potential to be a very good site to learn kanji from.
Kanji-A-Day.com is just what it says it is, a different kanji is featured every day for learners. While some other places will have a word-of-the-day or a kanji-of-the-day, they are usually just a random word picked out of a dictionary, with no concern for the learner's level. I, myself, have a gadget on my iGoogle homepage that is a Japanese word-a-day thing. Today happens to be a word/kanji I did not know previously, but other days it will have words I learned 10 years ago when I first started Japanese. There's no way to customize it to different levels of study, which would make it a truly awesome feature.
Kanji-A-Day.com, on the other hand, does allow for customization, to a point. Visitors to the site can choose whether they want to see the kanji-of-the-day for any of the four levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. This is great because then beginners don't get bombarded with kanji way out of the league, and more proficient users don't have to deal with the same kanji they've known for years. By creating a login for the site, you can even make the site more personalized, and you can store your own vocab/kanji lists for further study later.
Okay, more in depth on this site, what does it offer besides kanji-a-day?
Well, for starters, there's a handy-dandy Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary lookup right at the top of the site. It takes romaji or kana for the Japanese lookup, which makes it more useful than using a translate site like Google Translate or Babelfish.
Now, for the actual kanji-a-day part, it not only gives you the kanji and English translation, but also the kunyomi and onyomi readings. Underneath all of the readings and definitions, most kanji (sadly not all) have an animated GIF showing the stroke order of the kanji, followed by a step-by-step diagram of the strokes. The thing I like about this GIF and stroke order diagram is not only do they know the order of strokes, but also the beginning of each stroke is orange so you know where each line starts! I don't think I've ever seen that anywhere before. Books and charts will usually have an arrow showing the direction of the strokes, or nothing at all as you learn the basic rules for stroke order. For those with no real knowledge of stroke order, this is pretty useful. Following stroke order makes you characters look so much better.
Under the diagrams gives you a button to add the kanji to your study list, if you happened to be logged in, then offers several useful combinations. The cool thing about these combinations is, every time I flip through the different levels, the combinations change! Occasionally there's even a "more" link at the bottom right so you can see more combinations. And just like with the kanji itself, there are checkboxes next to each combination so you can add them to a vocab list if you so please.
Another nifty thing the site offers is a kanji-a-day e-mail, once again tailored to the four levels of the JLPT. There's also a vocab-a-day if you want to learn regular vocab as well. Both of these are offered as "trials", which seem to be a month or so of free e-mails. If you'd like to continue, you have to sign up and pay for "premium" which offers not only the daily e-mails, but also quizzes and other study resources to help you study at your own pace, at your own level. The "premium" program costs only $9.99 and it seems they customizable with the kanji/vocab lists you make on the site, ad-free, and are unlimited. They're also working on adding in customizable feeds and a kanji-by-radical dictionary. Not bad for only $10 a year. That's less than a dollar a month, which is affordable for just about anyone.
If you like your XML Feeds, they also offer daily feeds for each of the four levels. You can get your kanji fix just about anywhere with this site!
For true beginners, the site also recommends two workbooks for learning hiragana and katakana, as well as a kanji-a-day practice calendar-pad-thing, which actually looks quite intriguing. There are also pages with hiragana and katakana charts that contain very brief introduction to both scripts. But, as it is a page concentrating on kanji, there isn't much other than that.
Another interesting thing the site offers is a list of the 100 most use kanji on the Internet! Each one is a clickable link to a dictionary page that offers readings, stroke order diagrams, and combinations. It's actually a cool feature I haven't seen before, and is probably very useful to people who browse Japanese websites and blogs regularly.
The site also offers a decent list of textbooks and workbooks to help you learn hiragana, katakana and kanji on your own. The lists consists of books and study materials that appeal to all different types of learners, which is great. You can choose a book that fits to your study style.
Under the textbook link is a very useful link to information about the JLPT. It outlines the point breakdown of the test, and gives a useful like to applying for the test in the US. There's also links to kanji and vocab lists for all four levels, which is really helpful. From the lists you can even add in kanji and vocab to your personalized lists, if you stumble upon some kanji you didn't know.
Oh wow, I know this is late, but I just totally noticed the kanji dictionary field on the upper right corner of the site! You can look up kanji by either the English, reading, copy-pasting the kanji itself, or even the stroke count! That's actually kind of nifty. There aren't many sites that allow kanji lookup by just stroke count.
Overall, I have to say this is the best site I've found yet. It's simple, easy-to-use, and offers a lot of different features. Reading back through my review, I don't think I found a single thing wrong, but then again I haven't browsed through all of the kanji to check for mistakes. I think this site could be very useful to anyone looking for a supplement to their kanji learning, or even looking for a place to start learning kanji on their own.
I think this in combination with the Anki flashcard program I talked about a few posts ago would definitely prepare anyone for the writing-vocabulary and reading sections of the JLPT.
If I had to rate on a scale of 1-10, I'd say a solid 8, possibly a 9 considering how well organized and how easy-to-use the site on a whole is. One day I'll have to create a login and check out how well the personalized kanji/vocab lists work, and check out their forums. This site could very well be a 10 if there aren't too many bugs.
Comments (0)