Nekopi - Fun Learning Content Site

Nekopi great place to study Japanese (and other subjects) in Japanese! While there's no English to guide you, you can start to put your Japanese language skills to the test.

This site is designed for schoolchildren in Japan, but a site like this can help to improve your skills as a learner of Japanese, too. Because there are lots of pictures and images, you can try to navigate the site on your own. Also, here is some help with navigating the site!

The content available for study and play include:　さんすう Arithmetic , こくごJapanese language,　りか Science,　えいご English,　しゃかい Social Studies,　ようちえん Kindergarten learning,　げーむほか Games,　うた Songs,　アニメ Anime, and　キャラ＆まんが Characters & Manga.

There is a wealth of learning materials and information here! You can learn about the history of Japan, learn songs in Japanese, pick up new vocabulary such as foods which exists in Japan, and so much more.

*Some games and activities might take a bit of time because of the flash player.

Videos of Japan on photojpn's YouTube Channel

Are you interested in Japanese culture? The photojpn video channel has over 250+ cultural videos about Japan. If you enjoy Japan festivals, dancing, drumming, and other arts, you will find lots of enjoyable videos here!

SimulRadio -Live Japan Radio

SimulRadio is a website which broadcasts LIVE radio stations in Japan. While some stations only broadcast at certain times in Japan, many stations stream live 24/7! Click on any station and it will open and play in your computer's audio player. Genres include talk radio, music, kids, comedy, and more! This is a great site to get exposure to native Japanese speaking and improve your listening skills, all while enjoying great radio stations from all around Japan --for FREE!

Azumino FM Radio Broadcasting Stream

Even just 10 minutes of FM AZUMINO Broadcasting can improve your Japanese listening skills, while expanding your knowledge of the culture of a city like Azimuno. Actually, Azumino is not well-known by foreigners, but very well-known by Japanese. Azumino is in Nagano prefecture and is known for its wasabi, beautiful scenery, and cycling environment. Azumino city is home to several art houses and crafters of all kinds including glass, leather, wood, and more! Azumino is a very relaxing environment and a day spent with Azumino FM is close to taking a trip to the city itself!

All of the stations available are shown on a map. Just click あずみ野エフエムの放送を聴く 音声（６４Ｋ） to start streaming via your computer's media player!　

Nissan N-Link ・ WEB Picture Book

Japan's Nissan corporation includes a special WEB Picture Book section on its website. Personally, this is one my favorite websites for reading practice! First of all there are 3 FREE interactive stories to choose from on this Japanese website: Issunboushi (The Inch-High Samurai), アラジンとまほうのランプ (Aladdin & the Magic Lamp), and ももたろう (The Peach Boy).
This is a very well designed interactive storybook site! The stories are also well-narrated and illustrated with accompanying music and sound FX!

The stories include special interactive features like short activity breaks from the story, such as creating a dance and performing it for friends in Isshun boushi. And of course Nissan finds a cute way to include their *product*

These stories are lengthy written with furigana-attached Kanji characters. With the narrator's voice included, these stories are great for reading practice, listening comprehension, or for entertaining small children.

Kansai-ben - Learn Kansai Dialect

Kansai-ben is a study tool for Japanese learners who want to study Kansai dialect Kansai-ben, a dialect of Japanese spoken by residents of the Kansai (Western) area of Japan. See and hear how greetings and other expressions in standard Japanese differ from Kansai dialect. You can also see natural conversations which take place in the towns and at markets, etc. There are short quiz questions throughout the site. Challenge your Kansai-ben knowledge!

宇宙教育テレビ ・ Space Education TV

On this Space Education TV website, you can access over 100 recorded live stream of science news! This site is geared toward young kids but is a perfect study tool for Japanese language learners, too. The hosts don't speak too fast and often pause. Also the terminology used, even though its science-related, isn't too complicated because it is for kids understanding. If you enjoy science, want to see the culture of Japan's education and classrooms, or you want to work on your listening comprehension, this site has hours and hours of educational information for your ears.

Just scroll down and click on one of the 100+ video stream links!

夢があるなら・Moving Picture Book

This Moving Picture Book site has a variety of FREE moving pictures books! You can access some of them on the main page and even more when you click on the red 動く絵本 button from the menu bar. You will see after clicking that the categories of the available picture books have been divided by age range. Actually, these store are for infant, small, children, and younger school kids(actually there is an 'Adult' category). However, this site is great for learners of Japanese!

Once you click a story you like, it will usually begin automatically but might require you to click 'Start" or the 'Play' button. Some stories have text and sound but no narration, some have words and sound but no narration, and in some case, there is sound, text, AND a narrator!　The categories designed for younger ages might include all 3 components, if that's what you prefer, because babies, for example, can't read :P

There may be a green フールスクリーンで見る button which allows you to view a full screen version.
There may also blue ＹｏｕＴｕｂｅで見る button which allows you to view the moving picture story via YouTube.

SONET's Story Gate - FREE Picture Book Sample

SONET's Story Gate offers a new FREE sample story everyday! Click on the red button which reads お話を見る（無料）　These stories are beautifully crafted and are accompanied by music and recited by a native speaker. While there is no text in these samples, these stories make for great listening comprehension practice as they are about 15 minutes long!

Gakken Kids Net - eBooks for Kids

Gakken Kids Net has free previews for eBooks. Click the image of the eBook of your choice. You can watch the preview via the YouTube video there!Although they are just previews, these make great reading practice for learners of Japanese and kids can enjoy them, too. Another wonderful thing about this is the audio of native speakers reading aloud. The video quality is so clear. You can read along, too!

FujiPan - Famous Folktales

While this Japanese bread site offers products, recipes, and more, this post highlights the section called FujiPan to wa Hagukumu which has famous folktales for kids that are also great for learners of Japanese. There are tons of stories which you can select by genre. There is also a section which has the stories categories by each prefecture of Japan where the story is popular. You don't need perfect Japanese to navigate to the stories. Just scroll down and click on the picture or its title!

When you do click, a separate window opens up the story which are all accompanied by audio file so you can follow or read along! These stories include Kanji characters, but there are Hiragana readings in parenthesis which are also included.

Japanese Nihongo - Conversation

This is a page directed from Japanese-nihongo.com which lists a variety of different conversation topics for beginners including but not limited to introductions, first visit to Japan, taking the train, and getting lost. These conversation lessons are geared towards beginner and intermediate students of Japanese. Options for viewing the lessons may be in HTML webpage form, or PDF or DOC which you can download and save to your computer. In many cases, there are audio files included which play in your web browser.

If you click the Home link at the top of the page, you can find a link which directs you to entries--including some written in Japanese that you can study. There is also links for more conversation dialogues, JLPT, and essays. If you are ready for advance level, I think you will also like reading these.

生活日本語会話 - Japanese Life Conversation

Sekatsu Nihongo Kaiwa is a site of collected example conversations offered by a Taiwanese university. While the accompanied sound files seem to broken, intermediate and advanced speakers can find a wide variety of example conversations here for speaking practice with topics ranging from self-introduction to shopping expressions to apologizing for something.  The readings for each Kanji character is also provided here. If you're using Rikaichan, words can be interpreted despite the use of parentheses.

As for beginners, if you don't mind the absence of English on this site you might also find this site useful to you. The pronunciation practice located at the bottom of the page could be most helpful to you.

School House Family Net - Game Plaza

School House Family Net is in Japanese and geared towards Japanese children but it's a great resource and entertainment venue for learners of Japanese, especially if you love games!

If you have the Rikaichan tool which allows you to scroll your mouse over Japanese text for translations, this site works well with it. If not, you can learn more about it here. Use Rikaichan by hovering your mouse over text to better navigate this site.

Explore the site! You can find some games and activities that will give you good practice!

...Like these:

• Scroll down and click 頭脳系 and click はっぴーヘアメイク
  In this game, commands are given in Hiragana. Following these commands you have to style the clients hair appropriately!
• Scroll down and click アクション・シューティング系 and click  ウサコ・うさおの雪合戦
  Press the yellow Start button. Choose your character. Collect and throw snowballs. You can get some reading practice while enjoying a good snowball fight!
• Scroll down and click 入学準備 学習幼稚園 on the left hand side. Click on the first option: ゲームコーナー , scroll down again and click on プレー！　to play なぞポンの　なぞなぞゲーム２. Practice your reading skills and identifying matching vocabulary to such questions such as:
  まるくて　あまくて　おいしい　けど、　まなかが　たべられない　おかし　なんだ？
  What do you call the snack which is round and sweet but the middle can't be eaten?
  
  It's not hard to be directed to sites for purchasing items, but I hope you can find this site helpful.
  

NHK for School

NHK for School Don't let this site scare you off because it it completely in Japanese. It might be kind of confusing if you dont know how to read much Kanji...but...You can access so many different types of content on this site! Though the site is designed for young children and students in Japan, it's a great resource for any person studying Japanese! It can get downright confusing, but just click around and visit this site from time to time and bookmark what's suitable for your level! There are a lot of videos, games, etc. to boost and improve your Japanese language and cultural understanding!

Here is a key and some links to get you started:
番組 -  TV Programs (Bangumi)
クリップ - Clips - Broadcast programs and short educational footage clipsWatch educational programs any time! Study what you are interested in and use for studying the information you are not completely comfortable with.Many of the videos here are 1-3 minute movies. There are supposedly over 3,000 clips.
ゲーム - Games - Educational pages with quizzes and games
There are tons of quizzes and games for fun and language learning including Recycling Trash, 

電子黒板 - (Electronic Blackboard (Denshi Kokuban)

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－　

国語　こくご　　  Japanese language/national laguage (also as a subject in Japanese schools)
算数　さんすう　Arithmetic
理科　りか　　　 science
社会　しゃかい  society
総合　そうごう　coordination/comprehension

No Laughing in Yugawara Batsu Game

No Laughing in Yugawara Batsu Game is a Japanese gameshow. It is said that this is very popular in Japan. Currently it is available as a full-length movie on YouTube. As of today it has been available for about 2 months. Hopefully it is still available for you to enjoy!

The rules of the Batsu Game:
#1: You will stay overnight at a spring inn.

#2:  No matter what, do not laugh during this trip.

#3: If you do laugh, you will be punished immediately

Econtrader - Interactive Japanese

Econtrader - This website helps you learn Japanese through an interactive map style. Learn Japanese for the home, school, hotel, market, and more! Hear words and phrases in native Japanese!

NHK Radio News

No matter what level you are you can still benefit from listening to the daily news on NHK Radio News. Up your vocabulary and learn about current news and events in Japan. You really don't need to be able to read Japanese to get your listening practice here. Just click on the speaker symbol on the left to start up a station. Of course you can recognize the Flash Player and Windows Media player symbol. Even 10 minutes each day while you eat your breakfast will surely help to UP your listening ability! 　Click on ふつう at the top to hear nws at normal speed. ゆっくり slows down the track to a slower speed. はやい speeds up the track so that it is faster than normal speed.

AJALT - Survival Japanese

AJALT Survival Japanese is for people who are interested in communicating in Japanese but have no knowledge of the language. If you plan to visit Japan, this site make your stay much more interesting and enjoyable. Survival Japanese is an on-line textbook. It has four categories: Communication Tools, Situational Conversations, Grammar and Vocabulary. Some topics include: sightseeing, asking for directions, asking for help, and home-stay.

JapanesePod101 - Lessons Podcast

Here you can find podcast style lessons for Japanese ranging from beginner to Advanced level! Lots of culture are included in the lessons as well. While the Premium accounts on JapanesePod101 aren't FREE for the first 7 days upon signing up for a Basic Account, you have complete access to any and all materials: audio, dialog scripts in Japanese, translations, lesson notes, and more! After 7 days, Basic members can only access audio content on the site. I highly recommend making the most of your 7-day FREE trial. This makes downloading loads of content possible--for FREE! iTunes is a great method to do the downloads which you can collect in a feed and customize to your personal learning desires before downloading to your computer.