by Looking for the best websites to learn Japanese?
Well, the internet has quite a lot to sift through.
But don’t worry, this guide will guide you to the most interesting Japanese learning websites. Sites with easy lessons. Sites for reading. Sites with FREE resources. Dictionaries. And much more. Check it out.
13+ Best Websites to Learn Japanese
1. JapanesePod101.com
- For: Absolute Beginners to Advanced learners
- Strength: Great for speaking and listening skills
- Type: Program/Course
JapanesePod101 is an online Japanese learning program that teaches you via conversation lessons made by real teachers. Their lessons around 3-15 minutes long and build upon each other as you go from lesson 1, to 2, to 3. You hear a quick dialogue, you get the words and grammar explained, and then you hear that dialogue a few more times.
Very easy to use and this is my #1 suggestion for anyone starting out with Japanese – especially busy adults.
2. Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese
- For: Absolute Beginners to Intermediate
- Strength: Grammar explanations
- Type: Grammar articles
Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese is a blog that offers comprehensive grammar explanations and example sentences. It is suitable for self-learners who want to learn Japanese grammar in a structured and easy-to-understand way.
3. Imabi.net
- For: Absolute Beginners to Intermediate
- Strength: Grammar explanations
- Type: To be honest, calling it a blog or a site would be not doing imabi justice. To me, it’s pretty much a textbook.
Imabi is a free online website that offers comprehensive Japanese language lessons, grammar explanations, and vocabulary lists for self-learners. In other words, it’s like a whole dang textbook… online… and free.
Suitable for learners of all levels, Imabi provides detailed explanations and exercises covering a wide range of topics, including verb conjugation, sentence structure, and particle usage. With a clear and concise teaching approach, Imabi is an effective tool for those who want to study Japanese at their own pace and gain a thorough understanding of Japanese grammar and language usage.
4. NHK News Web Easy
- For: For Beginners to Intermediate
- Strength: Reading
- Type: Easy News Articles
NHK News Web Easy is a website that offers news articles written in simple Japanese for Japanese language learners. The website provides learners with a valuable opportunity to practice reading and understanding Japanese in a real-world context. The articles cover a wide range of topics, from current events to cultural news, and are written in a way that is easy to understand, even for beginners. Additionally, the website provides furigana readings for kanji and offers audio readings for each article, making it easy for learners to improve their listening and pronunciation skills. With its engaging and informative content, NHK News Web Easy is a great resource for Japanese language learners who want to improve their language skills while staying up-to-date on the latest news and events in Japan.
5. Jisho.org
- For: All levels
- Strength: Vocabulary, Kanji
- Type: Easy News Articles
Jisho is a free online Japanese dictionary that offers kanji search, example sentences, and vocabulary lists. It is suitable for learners who want to improve their Japanese language skills by learning new vocabulary and kanji.
It’s actually my go-to Japanese dictionary.
6. Maggie Sensei
- For: For Absolute Beginner to Intermediate
- Strength: Grammar explanations
- Type: Blog
Maggie Sensei is a free online resource that offers Japanese language lessons, grammar explanations, and vocabulary lists. The website is designed for learners who want to learn Japanese in a fun and entertaining way. Maggie, the website’s creator, uses her love of dogs (and cats) to create engaging and memorable examples of Japanese grammar and vocabulary. The website is suitable for beginners who want to learn Japanese from scratch and intermediate learners who want to improve their Japanese language skills.
7. Duolingo
- For: For Absolute Beginner to Beginner
- Strength: Game-like learning, good for words
- Type: App/program
You might know of Duo. For beginners, they make a pretty good resource for getting started and keeping at it. Of course, playing matching games won’t get you speaking, but it will expose you to some Japanese words which is decent enough for a new learner. Of course, I don’t think this will be your main source… but maybe an app you use on the side.
8. JLPT Boot Camp
- For: For Absolute Beginner to Intermediate
- Strength: Grammar explanations for JLPT
- Type: Blog
JLPT Boot Camp is a website that offers comprehensive Japanese language lessons, grammar explanations, vocabulary lists, and cultural insights. The website is designed for learners who want to prepare for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), and it features a range of practice exercises and tests to help learners prepare for the exam. The website also provides helpful tips and strategies for taking the JLPT.
9. Japanesetest4you
- For: For Absolute Beginner to Advanced
- Strength: Testing, Grammar, Kanji
- Type: Quizzes and infographics
Japanesetest4you is a free online resource that offers practice tests and quizzes for learners of Japanese. The website covers a wide range of topics, from basic vocabulary and grammar to more advanced language usage. The practice tests are designed to help learners prepare for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and other proficiency exams.
They also have tons of infographics of Japanese grammar that you can save to your phone and review.
10. Japanese-Online
- For: For Absolute Beginner
- Strength: Grammar
- Type: Blog
Japanese-Online is a free online resource that offers Japanese language lessons, grammar explanations, vocabulary lists, and cultural insights. It is suitable for beginners who want to learn Japanese from scratch.
If you need an Absolute-Beginner ONLY resource, this is it.
11. RealKana
- For: For Absolute Beginner
- Strength: Alphabet
- Type: Alphabet exercises
RealKana is a free online resource helps you learn the Japanese alphabet with interactive hiragana and katakana exercises. The website is designed for beginners who want to learn how to read and write Japanese syllabaries. The website features a range of practice exercises and games to help learners master the hiragana and katakana alphabets.
12. PDF-Language-Lessons.com
- For: For Absolute Beginners
- Strength: PDFs / Vocabulary/Phrases
- Type: PDFs
As you can tell by the site, it mostly offers phrase and vocab lessons in PDF form. Meaning, you can download and print these PDFs and use them as real Japanese worksheets. You can get Alphabet worksheets, grammar worksheets, and more.
13. HiNative
- For: For all levels
- Strength: Get your Japanese questions answered
- Type: Q&A website
Nowadays when I need to look a way to say something in Japanese, HiNative is my first stop. It’s a place where learners ask natives questions and get answers. So, you can either ask or look up what you want. Definitely one of the best websites to learn Japanese and get things cleared up.
Other Bonus Online Resources for Learning Japanese
This free little tool sends you a new Japanese word every day via email. You get the word, the meaning, a picture, audio, and sample sentences. If anything, it’s great for keeping you going with Japanese… even if you can only look at one word a day. Just sign up for a free account and say “yes” that you want the word of the day.
Here, you’ll find a bunch of printable Japanese workbooks and worksheets that teach you most common words and phrases. Your job is to print them out…. and them write in them. And oh yea, it’s free too. But, you will need an account.
This is a collection of printable PDFs that teach you words, phrases, and dialogues around certain topics. You can print them or keep them on your device. I’m more of a printer-type-of-person though.
How to Actually Learn Japanese…
The thing is…
I can give you all these best websites to learn Japanese…
You can have all the resources you want… but, that’s not all. If you want learn Japanese successfully, you should follow these tips.
1. Consistency is King
If you want to get good at anything, it’s all about consistency. So, if you study Japanese once in a blue moon, whenever you feel inspired or guilty… that is not the way. And you won’t progress fast. Fast progress comes from repetition and practice that builds on what you did yesterday. If you did zero yesterday, you can’t build off of zero… so try not to skip days.
2. It’s OK to Learn a Little Bit
Most people want to spend hours a day. Well, they’re not wrong in wanting to do so. Learning Japanese will take time. But, few can put in hours a day. Only broke students and the one-in-a-million geniuses. But for normal people, starting out doing hours is like lifting 200 pounds on your first day at the gym — bad idea.
So, if consistency is king, doing a LOT doesn’t make sense, but learning a bit, like doing a 10 minute session is just fine for now. The goal is to get used to Japanese where you don’t mind putting in more time. And that comes with time.
3. Avoid the “All or Nothing” Mentality
Again, because Japanese will take time… someone might think “well, there’s no point in doing 10 minutes a day when this stuff requires thousands and thousands of hours… so don’t bother. Either go 100% or don’t do anything.” And we call that the “all or nothing” mentality. You’ll find it with misguided beginners and psychos who don’t have much other responsibilities.
Point is, it’s half getting used to learning and half learning. You can’t study for hours out the gate. Nor do you probably want to. But, if you do 10 to 20 minutes a day, that’s enough for now.
4. Learn Japanese on the Go with Apps
But, if you’re always out, it would make sense to put that time to smart use and squeeze in some Japanese while you’re walking somewhere. So, be sure to learn with Japanese apps. That way, you can either 1) put in a few minutes a day, or 2) add in MORE Japanese time to your day on top of your other studies.
5. Real Learning Means Practice
Learning has 2 parts: 1) taking in new information and 2) practicing that until you know it well. If you just listen to Japanese words from YouTube videos but don’t do the practice, you won’t remember it all much. So, every time you learn something, be sure to practice – whether it’s speaking or writing things out.
We hope you found these tips helpful.
Do you know of any other best websites to learn Japanese for free? Leave a comment and tell us why.
We look forward to your replies.