Language Links (History 327: Modern Japan)


There are hundreds of web sites devoted to Japanese language and culture. This small collection of links is not meant to be even remotely thorough. The main purpose is to provide students in Modern Japanese history an easily accessible selection of sites to help pronounce Japanese words. Most of these sites have links to other material. Inclusion of these links is in no way an endorsement of any products or services. As a warning, some of these websites might have text that requires Japanese language support on the Windows operating system. Japanese fonts may not be installed on your computer. Jim Breen's page below has information that will be useful in that regard.

Pronouncing Japanese words

LearningJapanese.com's Pronunciation Guide		One of many pronunciation guides that teach you basic language sounds by comparison to English equivalents. There are no sound files to hear correct pronunciation.

Kanji Step: Japanese Language Resource Center:		A very good online learning tool for Japanese. There are particularly useful pages that allow you to play files of Japanese sounds. To find these, click the "On-line Teaching" tab on the left and go to "sounding Japanese"

Another Japanese pronunciation guide		Here is an example of another pronunciation guide with playable sound files (borrowed from yet another site!) While not as polished as the previous sites, it has easily accessible sound files on a US server.

Fonetiks.org		This free site has 6 pages of Japanese pronunciation materials. It includes cool sound files that are activated by rolling the mouse over selected words (getting used to it takes a moment or two). Scroll down to the Japanese section of the table and click one of the 6 pages.

Internet Japanese language learning sites

Jim Breen's Japanese Page (Monash University, Australia)		This is the most excellent collection of links about Japanese language sites on the internet (and more!) Topics range from language study, dictionaries, and software, to Japanese literature and culture.

CosCom Japanese Language School (Tokyo)		Lots of online content and introductions to Japanese characters, conversation, and information.

The Japanese Page:		The "How to Wow" page is useful at parties because you can learn Spy & Ninja words.