Japanese Kanji Online Resources Links
– Last Update: 8 October 2008 –

Chinese Characters & Language
The Why Study Chinese Etymology Page of Richard Sears' Chinese Etymology site features topics such as "Pictographs and Ideographs," "Meaning and Interpretation,""Traditional Chinese vs. Simplified Chinese" and "Modern Common Chinese Characters." Many links for resources concerning written Chinese.

The Chinese Writing System pages of Greg Pringle's cjvlang site.

SmartHanzi allows you to paste Chinese text in a box to obtain pinyin readings for specified characters as well as direct access to related terms in the CEDICT Chinese/English Dictionary file. Students of Japanese may check out SmartKanji, a related site.

Marjorie Chan's ChinaLinks has over 600 links to Chinese language resources sites. On a separate page is her Word Lists and Online Glossaries/Dictionaries for Chinese and Japanese, which also includes links to several sites dealing with Internal Codes for Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

The Chinese characters page of proel.org includes reproductions of the shell-and-bone, bronzeware inscription and seal forms of the characters, along with relevant maps, the 214 traditional radicals, stroke order principles and much more. This beautiful, Spanish-language site offers meticulously illustrated presentations of other ancient writing systems as well, such as Hittite, Aramaic, Etruscan and cuneiform characters.

Renaud Bouret's ramou.net is an outstanding French-language site offering a Chinese-French dictionary, texts and a variety of other Chinese-language resources.

Harmen Mesker's Character Analysis is a series of well-written and intriguing considerations of questions pertaining to the ancient Chinese literary classics.

Comparative Chart of Ancient Initials for Middle Chinese, compiled by James Campbell.

Besides scoping out the Chinese, Japanese, and other languages links on the Languages and Linguistics page of Mike Wright's RaccoonBend site, you can check out his iDataTM 2 database program for storing information in various languages.

Joerg Sziegat's German-language xuexizhongwen.de has an outstanding annotated collection of links to German, English and Chinese-language sites concerning Sinological studies. Joerg also has a lot of information about Chinese-language software.

The artistry of ancient Chinese characters comes alive at 佐藤圭 (Satou Kei)'s 古代文字を現代空間へ. Her works on granite, charcoal, bamboo and ceramics are simply exquisite.

For those seeking a one-of-a-kind, kanji-themed gift at an affordable price, kuubokumon will engrave your choice of Chinese character into an elegant pendant or bracelet made of fired clay.

漢字の写真字典　Photo dictionary of rare Chinese characters is a collection of shots taken in mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia etc. The photos are accompanied by detailed explanations (in Japanese).

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Sino-Tibetan
The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus

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Japanese & Kanji Dictionaries
Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Japanese-English Dictionary Server offers English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries, a kanji database, text translation and much more. Applications for keitai as well. Jim's famous EDICT Project has produced a Japanese-English Dictionary file with over 100,000 entries.

The demo version (with 440 characters) of ramou.net’s interactive online kanji dictionary has popup definitions, reference cards one can customize and smooth navigation features that newbies to Japanese will appreciate.

Hans-Jörg Bibiko's Japanisch-Deutsches Kanji-Lexikon.

漢字楽園. A site that advanced students of kanji will appreciate. Especially useful for those scaling the heights of the 漢字検定試験. The author is anonymous, but says the combined four-digit 区点コード for his/her name adds up to 12455. Happy sleuthing.

FOKS (Forgiving Online Kanji Search) is an interface using the EDICT-based dictionaries. The interface allows you to find a translation even when you don't know the exact reading of the term you want to look up.

Jonathon Sayles' English-Japanese dictionary arranges and displays select terms by categories such as Wildlife, General Life and Science, with the Japanese equivalents given in both romaji and in kana/kanji.

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Learning & Practicing Kanji
Kanji Cafe's Ice Mocha program allows the creation of customized Japanese vocabulary lists for drilling. 160,000 sample Japanese sentences with English translations. Stroke Order Diagrams as well. By Jim Rose.

Drill the Kanji offers tests for the readings and meanings of 1620 characters. By Roger Meyer.

Collin McCulley's KanjiLab is a kanji flash card program with score tracking, sample compounds tied to the readings, and example sentences. The site also includes notes on and ideas for self-study of Japanese.

Students of Japanese who read French can profit from this set of script-generated random questionnaires on kanji and kana from orbite.

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Japanese As a Second Language
A downloadable 285-page Japanese grammar book (PDF), online Japanese lessons, J/E-E/J online dictionary, a forum and other features, all offered on a no-charge-but-donations-welcomed basis, can be found at nihongoresources.com.

Jim Breen's Educational Resources is a gloriously extensive list of commercial and non-commercial sites.

The Japanese Writing System pages of Greg Pringle's cjvlang site.

In addition to a page of useful links for Japanese learning, Jouji Miwa offers uPAL (United Portal for Advanced Learning), a united dictionary search and speech synthesizing program worth checking out.

Ubiquitous Japanese Study (ユビキタス日本語学習) offers free Japanese language study materials directed at both teachers and students of the language. Also has a list of Japanese-language classes taught by volunteers in Japan.

Escale Japon offers free, self-teaching online lessons in Japanese, along with a forum, articles on Japanese and more. A French-language site from Karine.

Hans-Peter Gramatke's German-language pages on the Japanese writing system.

The 日本語の問題集 at sawayaka-life.com contains identify-the-mistaken-kanji and other exercises to test your Japanese skills. For advanced students. (Japanese-language site)

Teach Yourself Japanese, covering kana, basic greetings, vocabulary, dialogues and more. Message board for obtaining help from others. By Takasugi Shinji.

にほんご at www.nihongo.fr is an online Japanese study program. Though a French-language site, the administrator avers that the direct method employed makes the materials suitable for native speakers of other languages as well.

At 日本語Ｑ＆Ａ you can ask questions about Japanese and have them answered by a professional instructor. (Japanese-language site)

Leonardo Sasso's Nihongo site (in Spanish and English) assembles a useful collection of Japanese education resources.

Keiko Yokoo's links page points to sites of interest to teachers of Japanese as a second language. (Japanese-language site)

Yookoso has two mailing lists: Kanji a Day and Grammar a Day. The Editor's Favorites column has a good selection of links to Japanese-learning resources. By Jeff Blum.

At shiawase.com, Robert Belton shares his thoughts on software, web sites, iPod broadcasts and other sources for learning Japanese.

W. Jansen Heijtmajer's introduction to kana, NETWERK 2000, in parallel Dutch/English.

The Danish-language nihongo.dk offers Japanese grammar introductions, downloads, a forum and other features.

Japanophile is a French-Japanese-English site on Japan, the Japanese culture and its language.

Giapponese-x-te.com is an Italian site devoted to the study of the Japanese language.

Links for Japanese learning at JapanLinked.

Japanska.se is a Swedish-language site with a forum and other features for students of Japanese.

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Online Dictionaries, Linguistics & Language References
Tibor Majláth has a glorious collection of References and Links to printed publications and websites concerning various corners of the world of linguistics.

Tohoku University Professor GOTOO Hitoshi (後藤斉)'s Japanese and English pages of Linguistics websites in Japan.

alphaDictionary.com is a prime source of language dictionaries.

Karen Chung's Language and Linguistics Links is a comprehensive directory for journals, grammars, corpora, Chinese language reference sources and much more.

dmoz Open Directory Project.

Douglas Brick's list of Japanese resources.

Claude Trudel's French-language Formatic 2000 offers links to over 9,000 sites pertaining to the humanities, the sciences, Internet/Media and more. The Dictionnaires page links to online dictionary and lexicographical sites of various languages.

Interlex, a free Windows application with many user-friendly features, allows you to create bilingual vocabularly lists for self-testing in any two of over 35 languages, including Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish.

Links to English-Japanese dictionaries at ATS.

Judy Vorfeld - Webmaster Services; Editing and Writing Services has a page of Dictionaries and Glossaries links, plus links to slews of sites offering writing tips, grammar help and so on.

Language Automation, Inc. has a glossaries by language page listing online sources on languages running from Afrikaans to Urdu, with Jamaican, Maltese and Sumerian along the way.

The extensive compilation of dictionaries at The Linguist List.

Language Directory provides links to free language courses, grammars, newspapers, online TV and radio stations for approximately 100 languages. The top page for each features a concise English-language introduction to the target language.

Language Learning Links Library is a portal for thousands of online dictionaries and teaching websites, as well as for sites offering language acquisition software.

Lexilogos is dictionary and lexicography enthusiast Xavier Negre’s French-language "virtual media library," interesting both in concept and contents.

The Lexiteria's alphaDictionary Site links to reference sources in over 300 languages, and enables users to search nearly 1,000 online dictionaries simultaneously.

The LANGUES ETRANGERES page of the superextensive French-language liensutiles (Useful Links) site presents annotated links to sites concerned with dialects, regional languages and patois, as well as to ancient languages.

Multilingual Books offers courses, software, and videos for Japanese and other languages. Links to online Japanese newspapers and radio stations as well. The Free Japanese Lessons and Courses page links to many of the sites offering help with Japanese grammar, vocabulary, kanji and kana etc.

Omniglot offers detailed information about 150 writing systems along with topics such as "Multilingual computing,""Script charts,"and "Useful phrases in many languages." Extensive links. By Simon Ager.

Password's links include a number of unusual dictionaries.

Rikai.com allows your browser to display instantaneous popups showing the readings and translations of kanji appearing on Japanese or Chinese pages. Also works for English to Japanese or to Spanish. An ingenious and invaluable study tool from Todd David Rudick.

Web German's Foreign Language References is a rich set of links with categories such as Lesser Taught Languages (Cornish, Kervarker, Lakhota etc.) and Endangered Languages (Frisan, Flamand, Ladino etc.). If you've always wanted to swear in 140+ languages, you can find a link to your dream site within the Multi-language Reference Resources (Polyglot) section.

Doshisha University Professor Yoichiro Hasebe's del.icio.us bookmarklets provide concise Japanese descriptions of many linguistics and computer science-related sites.

SearchLanguage.com is a languages resources directory.

This Japanese-language site has a concise collection of online dictionaries and other reference sources.

Here is an online dictionary collection from a Dutch site.

Here is a manually selected list of 800+ online dictionaries.

Juha-Petri Tyrkko's general language links, with some Japanese annotation.

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Japanese Language, Culture & More
You can't go wrong with Keiko Schneider's Bookmarks, Charles Kelly's Select List of Japanese Language Study Sites at www.ManyThings.org, or Jim Becker's Internet Resources, all of which have carefully cultivated and extensive lists of Japan/Japanese links.

Internet Resources: 翻訳のためのインターネットリソース has a stunning collection of online resources for translators.

Japanophile.com features articles (in French and English) on Japan's language and culture, as well as on life in Japan, with accompanying photographs.

Ronald Hilhorst's kotowaza.org is a database containing more than 400 select proverbs with parallel Japanese/English/Dutch renderings.

Uchiyama is a comprehensive Dutch-language site with detailed information on various aspects of Japanese culture, plus a vast selection of links.

Compact lists of links for students of Japanese can be found at Kochi University of Technology professor Lawrie Hunter's Japanese Language for Learners page and Yuusuke Sakurai's 日本語学習のためのウェブリソース.

Unica's pages of Italian-language annotated links to Japanese language and culture sites.

Robert Mittelstaedt’s German-language annotated links to media, culture, and Japan sites.

Kaj Syrjänen's page of Finnish-language annotated links, mostly to Japan-related sites.

For speakers/readers of Dutch, Jarkko's webhoek, from Jarkko Huijts, offers annotated links in Dutch to Japanese language learning sites.

The Dictionaries page of the Japanese-language 千客千万来[実用情報] daily-use information site contains a categorized list of select online, Japanese-language dictionaries.

Intervall-audio is devoted to electronic music in Japan and Germany, and also has some Japanese-language and Japan guide links.

Ken McCrimmon's Japanese links.

Don Shorock's Japanese links.

Kostya's Japan Links.

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General Etymology
語源由来辞典 supplies etymological explanations for 1,100 native Japanese or Sino-Japanese terms and expressions (also some loan words originating in English or other languages). (Japanese-language site)

When it comes to the etymology of English terms, Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary is the gold standard.

The etymology page of E.L. Easton's Materials for Teaching and Learning site includes sections on etymology online, the history of English, loan words, and neologisms.

Mike Campbell's Behind the Name: The Etymology and History of First Names traces the roots of common first names in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and other languages.

French etymology @ Globe-Gate is an excellent starting point for online treatments of French etymology.

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Indo-European Etymology
Digging for commonalities between Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European languages can be all kinds of fun for linguistic archeologists. Here are a handful of Indo-European sites to get you started. The IEED (Indo-European Etymological Dictionary) project from the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University. Next, two offerings from Bartleby.com: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans by Calvert Watkins; Indo-European Roots Index. Used in conjunction with the material in Kanji Networks, this latter page allows you do your own etymological sleuthing for semantic overlaps in the initial consonants of proto-Chinese and of Indo-European.

You can find tutorials on many Indo-European languages at ielanguages.com. The Links page also has a tremendous selection of useful sites.

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Educational Institutes & Kanji Networks
Dresden University of Technology
Michigan State University
Boston University
Knox College Department of Japanese
UC Berkeley Japanese Program
University of Cambridge Language Centre
University of Gent
Helsinki University of Technology
University of Oslo
University of Sherbrooke
Duke University
Southern Illinois University
Bowling Green State University
Hiroshima University
Edith Cowan University
Cardiff University Japanese Studies Centre
University College London
Nanyang Technical University
USAT
University of Wellington
The University of Calgary
Global Campus Net, Osaka
W.M. Keck Interactive Learning Center
J-OS.com (Offering webcam-based online instruction in Japanese)
AOTS Japanese Language Training Center
Yoshida Institute

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Kanji Search Engines & Web Communities
Stumbleupon.com is a web surfing community where members share their favorite sites with others of similar interests.
iKjeld.com Japan Links, with 1400+ Japan and translation links in a search engine format.

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Net Friends
Xavier Olive
Masashi Nakanishi
Sherab Chen
Ana Saiz García

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Internet Tools
Two useful and FREE tools for your web site. StatCounter web tracker; FreeFind site search.

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Miscellaneous (Language, Writing, Poetry, Symbols)
For ancient history buffs, Steve Trussel's EclectiCity has a Nihongo: Japanese Language page with links to 1997-2002 Japan Times articles on Japanese prehistory.

A list of resources highly regarded by anime fans is www.koyagi.com, from Gilles Poitras.

Correspondance-fr.org is a free registry for those seeking language-exchange penpals. The site also has penpal and travel-related articles, as well as a half-dozen forums.

A To Z Writing has links to sites and articles on all kinds of writing topics, including sections for Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Egyptian writing systems.

POETRYMAGIC.CO.UK is a resource center for the theory and craft of writing poetry, offering an introduction to poetry for students, amateurs and poetry lovers.

National Association of Japan-America Societies.

Directory to the World of Symbolism has the subject well covered, with categories such as Celtic, dreams, heraldry, Native American, sacred geometry and many more.

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