Community Language Lab

Radio Lingua offers this marvelous series of downloadable Podcasts in numerous languages, designed specifically in lessons short enough to be "consumed" during your coffee break! What a concept.

LiveMocha is one of the most exciting on-line language learning opportunities to come on the scene! Authored by a group out of Bellevue, this FREE site combines the lesson style of Rosetta Stone with the amazing addition of interactivity with other world language learners. This means that your writing and voice recordings in the language you're studying can be corrected by native speakers with a simple click of the mouse, and you will be asked to correct the exercises completed by other students in your native language. Very slick! Also allows for real-time dialogue. Bookmark this one!

Polar Cloud's Rikaichan plug-in for Mozilla Firefox makes reading Japanese websites quick and easy.  In Firefox, install the Main Extension, the Japanese-English dictionary, and--if you want to--the Names dictionary.  (Restart Firefox between each of the installations).  Once you are on a Japanese webpage, right click and select "Rikaichan" to enable it for that tab.  Every page you visit in that tab will have Rikaichan enabled.  Then, simply roll over any kanji with your mouse to see readings, English definitions, compounds, etc.  SOOOO easy!!!

Digital Dialects has loads of animated activities and games that are intended to provide a relaxed way of acquiring basic language skills, and a great break from the books!

Internet Polyglot is an online flashcard system which uses games and drills designed to help you retain vocabulary.  Build your own lessons, steal from other users, or use the ready-made sets.

The Meguro Language Center in Tokyo has tons of free downloadable worksheets and activities for language learning, including kana practice sheets, particle overviews, audio files, flashcards, and more.  (Scroll down for the good stuff).

The University of Michigan has created charts of the 46 characters in the hiragana syllabary. Click on any of the characters to see the stroke order and hear audio of pronunciation.

A companion to the Genki textbook series used by Japanese language classes at Evergreen, the "Self-Study Room" features quizzes, games, flashcard sets, and more.  Reading and writing practice for the kana and kanji, vocabulary, grammar structures and conjugation as well as links to outside websites designed to follow the Genki text.

Click on the links below to access the search results for Japanese language resources in the library.

Language Study Sound Recordings: Japanese language instruction on CD, tapes, and LP.

Other Sound Recordings: Japanese music on CD, tapes, and LP.

Dictionaries: Japanese-English, English-Japanese, Kanji, idioms, and more.

Readers: Practice reading real Japanese.

Texts: Language courses, phrase books, grammar, and writing.