Guide: Recommended websites
General
Japanese Lingualift
Philip has put together a great list of resources to learn Japanese! No matter what you are looking for (a dictionary, a game, a podcast...), it's probably on his list of recommended resources!
Meguro Language Center
On the website of this language school, you can find free study materials that can help you with grammar, vocabulary, listening comprehension...!
Kanji
Jlex
On this website, you can search kanji by parts, no matter if the part is the radical or not. It is very helpful to have the list of all kanji that share one specific component. The other great feature is that for each kanji it provides a list of compound words where the kanji appears, no matter its position in the word!
[ NOTE ] This website includes kanji that are not in the jōyō kanji list, so it is sometimes a bit overwhelming.
Kanji Alive
On this website, each kanji is introduced with a very short and easy-to-remember mnemonic hint adapted from the great method of Joseph De Roo (which, unfortunately, is now out of print).
[ NOTE ] This website does not include all the jōyō kanji. It "only" presents 1235 kanji.
Listening Comprehension
Would you like to watch Japanese TV?
Here are some links that work from Canada (well, at least from my computer)!
Education
NHK for school offers a lot of videos aimed at Japanese primary school students on various topics: Japanese language, history, geography, media, science… Just pick up one and enjoy all these easy-to-understand videos!
News
- NHK News Web EASY: Simplified news for foreigners, with the furigana, voice over, and links to the non-simplified news. A great way to practice!
- NHK News Web: Definitely my favourite one since it provides a quite accurate script
- Nihon-terebi (NNN)
- TBS (JNN)
- TV-Asahi (ANN)
- Fuji News Network (FNN)
- Yahoo JP: basically, a compilation of the links above
- Daiwa TV: Financial news only (for people interested in stock market…)
Shopping
- QVC: fun!