Good free/cheap way to study Japanese (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Good free/cheap way to study Japanese
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16 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

maydayayday
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Message 9 of 16

02 August 2015 at 11:59am | IP Logged

Emme wrote:

Welcome to the forum, Madman6510!

I don’t study Japanese so I don’t know what good resources are out there, but I know you can find a free 100-lesson course on the website of NHK (the Japanese national broadcaster).

http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/story/index.html

From the website you can download a pdf textbook (with both kana and romaji as well as the English translation) and the mp3 audio files for each lesson. As I said, I can’t vouch for the quality of this course, but it may be something to start with until you find better materials, or someone more experienced can direct you towards them.

Good luck with your Japanese learning.

PS. Take out the blanks (if any) in the link above for it to work.

Actually there are only 17 lessons on the NHK website of a planned 48. The lessons are simple but effective.
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aokoye
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Message 10 of 16

02 August 2015 at 5:28pm | IP Logged

York University has the material from entiere courses, including lecture videos, homework, tests, and
readings online http://buna.yorku.ca/japanese/
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dampingwire
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

Message 11 of 16

03 August 2015 at 11:28pm | IP Logged

maydayayday wrote:

Emme wrote:

Welcome to the forum, Madman6510!

I don’t study Japanese so I don’t know what good resources are out there, but I know you can find a free 100-lesson course on the website of NHK (the Japanese national
broadcaster).

http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/story/index.html

From the website you can download a pdf textbook (with both kana and romaji as well as the English translation) and the mp3 audio files for each lesson. As I said, I can’t vouch
for the quality of this course, but it may be something to start with until you find better materials, or someone more experienced can direct you towards them.

Good luck with your Japanese learning.

PS. Take out the blanks (if any) in the link above for it to work.

Actually there are only 17 lessons on the NHK website of a planned 48. The lessons are simple but effective.

That's true for the new course. The older (50 lesson) course PDF is here.
The links to the older MP3s now point to the new course.

I have a bunch of resources in my TAC 2014 log.
(If you follow the one that says NHK you'll see that they've clearly replaced the older lessons with the newer ones ... so download and the new ones would seem to be the lesson!)

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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
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United Kingdom
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Studies: Japanese

Message 12 of 16

03 August 2015 at 11:32pm | IP Logged

Madman6510 wrote:

I'm interested in learning Japanese, but I'm having difficulty finding good material to
start with. Or, to put it another way, I know I want to start learning, but have no idea
how to get started.

I would suggest starting with the hiragana: you can learn those in a week or two.

I found both the Michel Thomas and Pimsleur courses at my local library.

The main beginner level textbooks are Genki, Japanese for Busy People and Minna No Nihongo.

Tae Kim's grammar is a good primer too.

There's a great deal of free information on the internet these days, in fact there's so much that what would be useful is a little more
organisation for the beginner!

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maydayayday
Pentaglot
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish^B2, French^B2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

Message 13 of 16

04 August 2015 at 9:44am | IP Logged

dampingwire wrote:

maydayayday wrote:

Emme wrote:

Welcome to the forum, Madman6510!

I don’t study Japanese so I don’t know what good resources are out there, but I know you can find a free 100-lesson course on the website of NHK (the Japanese national
broadcaster).

http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/story/index.html

From the website you can download a pdf textbook (with both kana and romaji as well as the English translation) and the mp3 audio files for each lesson. As I said, I can’t vouch
for the quality of this course, but it may be something to start with until you find better materials, or someone more experienced can direct you towards them.

Good luck with your Japanese learning.

PS. Take out the blanks (if any) in the link above for it to work.

Actually there are only 17 lessons on the NHK website of a planned 48. The lessons are simple but effective.

Thanks - I'd found the printed course notes but it seems that NHK are updating the materials as we speak - Lesson 18 has appeared.

Edited by maydayayday on 04 August 2015 at 9:47am
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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4675 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

Message 14 of 16

04 August 2015 at 10:12am | IP Logged

maydayayday wrote:

Thanks - I'd found the printed course notes but it seems that NHK are
updating the materials as we speak - Lesson 18 has appeared.

I listened to one lesson of the new course and it seems similar in format to the old one
(short skit, two presenters discussing it); I appreciated the old course when I used it a
few years ago, so I'm sure the new one will be just as good.

You might want to grab the PDF for the old one (before they update it) and then send them
an email asking if the MP3s for old one are still available. The story line is different
(Vietnamese guy gos to work for a year or so in a Japanese office) so the vocabulary will
be slightly different. Can't hurt to ask :-)

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Arnaud25
Diglot
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France
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Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Russian

Message 15 of 16

05 August 2015 at 12:42pm | IP Logged

maydayayday wrote:

Actually there are only 17 lessons on the NHK website of a planned 48. The lessons are simple but effective.

Yes, it's probably because it's a new course. They removed the old one who was featuring 50 lessons.
Edit: I have the french pdf and mp3s of the old course on my computer, if anyone is interested...

Edited by Arnaud25 on 05 August 2015 at 12:55pm
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chaotic_thought
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Studies: Dutch, French

Message 16 of 16

08 August 2015 at 8:59am | IP Logged

Also take a look at Jim Breen's Japanese page:

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html

It is a large list of resources, many free.

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