Nihongo ga narau

[mindstalk]

My dabbling in learning Japanese continues, and I've found some neat sites:

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/
"A Japanese guide to Japanese", vs. one thinking in terms of English grammar. Claims things like "desu is not the polite version of da" and "ga is not a subject marker really". He starts using lots of kanji right away, but mouseovers make a text box pop up with pronunciation and translation. Links to the other sites:

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Shrine/7047/hwritutor.htm
with animated GIFs of how to draw kanas, and a few kanji

http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/cover.html
Java applets with kana drawing, sound files for the syllables/morae, and applets for testing and training your kana recognition skills.

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html
An online dictionary I've heard of before. I've had limited success finding stuff via romaji, vs. pasting in kanji from elsewhere, e.g. 'guu' "long-tailed monkey", from Suiguutou, a magical sword in Juuni Kokki.

I now 'know' 34 kanji. 1% literacy, woo-hoo!