12 Free Tools I'd Use to Learn Japanese (If I Could Start Over)

To learn Japanese, I would use these free tools if I was broke and wanted to study Japanese effectively. Or if I wanted to save money and learn Japanese.

Free Japanese Learning TOOLS in This Video

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0:00 Intro
0:31 Japanese Kana
0:51 Japanese Dictionaries
1:28 Japanese Vocabulary
2:29 Japanese Grammar
3:09 Kanji
4:14 Reading Japanese
5:31 Japanese Listening
6:32 Paid Tools You Might Have

[ToKiniAndy]

It appears that "Japanese" no longer works on the newest version of Android! Sorry about that!

[PapaBoneyinVR]

I find japanese game "let's play" videos on youtube to be a tremendous aid in learning because they are mostly always talking about what is going on on screen, meaning that it is absolutely wonderful comprehensible input for immersion

[lizardqueen]

Definitely think a kanji series would be great. WaniKani works really well for me personally, but I think having a completely free resource for people the other tools just don't work for is really important.

[Ra_aradnE]

Yes please do a series on kanji on your channel, I absolutely love your teaching methods especially with the Genki series so a kanji one will be super appreciated!

[colehall]

After 3 years of self-study (trying to stay as free as possible minus an Italki lesson or a textbook here and there), I find that Kanji are the only thing that I haven't been able to find a great way to study... so seeing you agree made me feel a little better about that. I would love to see a series for Kanji here!

[kohaku]

A KANJI SERIES!? That would be awesome! I'm a second year student at depaul university in chicago and japanese Studies is my major. My class is using the genki series and I watch your videos before we start each class. A kanji break down from you would be awesome!

[bmanpura]

Personally, changing my phone's language setting to JP had an amazing effect.
First, seeing kanji everyday decreases my resistance to it, and sometimes even picking up and reinforcing what I've learned.
Second, it's not that bad. It's really bad for the first three days, but after that, most basic functions you remember well will return with relatively high proficiency. Special functions will force you to read japanese, and that's a good things.
Three, my phone automatically became a reminder for to learn jp everyday, since I'm staring at it everyday.

[VenomLion]

Learned all hiragana in 5 days with tofugu. Learned 30 katakana in a day after that. Surprised how good the tool is, and how relatively easy it has been!

[michalljubljanac]

Really suprised you haven't mentioned Kanji Koohii. It's a pretty popular free site for learning Kanji that's been around for almost 20 years now. It allows users to share their mnemonics based on the Heisig method, to select favorites, and to remember them with an SRT system akin to Anki. I honestly think that it is just plain better than working through the RTK book(s) on your own.

[spacethreads]

for kanji, there's a free dictionary I've been using for 500+ days which is called kanji study. it's honestly so helpful and it contains writing and reading exercises (reading is a bit limited). I've bought the premium version like a month ago but I've been using it before completely free and it's a lifesaver honestly. I totally recommend it!

Also thank you so much Andy for the video, I really look forward to the videos you make a lot :)

[mrezio]

Really looking forward to your kanji series. I feel like you would really help a lot of people understand kanji and have it actually stick for us!

[abbyjentson]

For Kanji, I’ve started just learning vocabulary first and looking up the word in the Jisho dictionary app/website. If it’s usually written in Kanji, I’ll write it down. That way, I learn the kanji within the context of vocabulary I already know and it makes it much simpler than learning the kanji itself when the kanji can mean so many different things. I only need to know what it means in the context I’m currently learning, and when I come across that kanji in another word I’ll learn that word too.
Jisho is a great dictionary app because it also teaches you how to write the kanji!

[languageoclock]

The Migaku Kanji God Anki add-on is absolutely brilliant and completely free. It scans your existing vocab decks and automatically generates Heisig style cards which display the words from your collection containing that kanji. Unlike when doing RTK traditionally or with a premade deck, it allows you to prioritise learning the kanji relevant to your own vocabulary rather than having to follow some arbitrary order. There's also a feature where you can just give it a bunch of text and have it automatically add all the unknown kanji from there, so it's easy to generate relevant cards even if you don't actually use anki to memorise vocabulary. I used to feed it lyrics from songs I liked so I could learn to recognise the kanji first, and then used that knowledge to help me learn the readings in the context of words just by listening to music and reading a whole lot of children's novels with furigana. I've memorised well over 2000 kanji in the 10 months since I started learning Japanese, can't recommend this add-on enough :)

[Aethid]

I highly recommend Renshuu as an alternative to Anki or Memrise. I find it much better than either, as it is specifically built for Japanese. It handles kanji particularly well, both for learning kanji individually (e.g. their meaning and readings), and smoothly transitioning your vocab "decks" from hiragana to kanji as you learn them. It has audio, nmenomics, example sentences, grammar lessons, etc.

[VaibhavShewale]

guess i have to come to this video back!

[sacrashin]

Glad that learning by gaming was included (don't see that very often as a suggestion), because in my opinion it's a really great way to learn Kanji and vocabulary without it getting tedious or feeling like a chore. Another thing I'd like to add is just surrounding your everyday life with the language you want to learn. English isn't my first or even second language and when I decided that I want to get better at it (because I sucked at it during school), I started playing all my games in english and also started watching youtube almost enitrely in english among other things (and now I'm trying to do the same with japanese).

[egjundis]

I'm old school and love anki. I studied Japanese decades ago predigital sources. All of this free stuff is amazing. Thank you!

[graywlf]

Another tool that I've found that's super helpful (it's pretty much free with some extras that you can pay for) is Renshuu. I haven't heard many people talk about it tbh. It's got kanji learning, vocabulary with sentence examples, user generated mnemonics, games, a weekly forum, and so much more. Some draw backs is that it can be a bit of a learning curve when starting out and it's online only (the app needs internet to function too), but the cloud syncing is nice and it's got a lot of features.

[BogChild]

This kanji series is absolutely necessary and you're doing a really good thing here. This is one of the biggest barriers to basic entry and it's because of the same lack of easy, free options to do so you're talking about.

[Snow-Willow]

I have just been doing the WaniKani Anki deck as my free Kanji learning, and it works well enough for me. It's like a slightly stripped down WK experience.
I am super excited to see TokiniAndy Kanji lessons though. Your teaching style is so easy to understand and relatable, I'm sure it'll be great and mega helpful.