Learn Japanese |
Whether you're learning Japanese to watch anime or to visit Japan, we've got you covered!
Look up words with our Japanese-English picture dictionary and learn vocab with eBooks containing hand-picked words.
Learn visually
Kuma Learn offers you a Japanese-English picture dictionary as well as eBooks with hand-picked vocabulary. Kuma Learn also offers a Spaced Repetition System (SRS) so that you can learn vocab and kanji efficiently.
Benefits and features
Japanese-English picture dictionary
Visual content plays a big role in our learning and keeping us motivated, whether that be watching anime, reading manga or watching TV.
We've carefully hand-picked 4,000+ words with pictures for you, so that you can look up Japanese vocab visually!
eBooks packed with hand-picked vocab
Learning Japanese vocabulary with pictures certainly helps but we have plans to make it even more fun by introducing interactive games.
Spaced Repetition System (SRS)
Spaced Repetition System (SRS)
Kuma Learn helps you learn Japanese vocabulary and kanji efficiently with a Spaced Repetition System (SRS). You'll be shown words that you don't know more often than words know well.
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Frequently asked questions
When learning Japanese, you'll be looking up words constantly. Some words lend themselves very well to visual presentation and that's why I created a picture dictionary for Japanese! With it, you can search for words in English (hello), Japanese (こんにちは) and romaji (konnichiwa). The picture dictionary has 180,000+ definitions, 4,000+ example sentences and 4,000+ words with pictures.
Of course, visual learning is only one aspect of many. Audial and kinaesthesic learning will add depth and variety where it's more appropriate. I started with the picture dictionary, as I believe there aren't enough good visual resources out there. Also, Kuma Learn has plans to offer games in the future!
SRS is short for Spaced Repeititon System. It's a flashcard system for you to learn vocabulary and kanji efficiently. You will be shown words that you don't know more often than words you know well. Studies have shown that this improves your learning and even changes how your brain is wired. [1]
It works like this:
- You're shown a flashcard and you'll rate how well you know the word or kanji ("Perfect", "Familiar", "Total black out", etc).
- The system will learn how well you've remembered a flashcard and, over time, will smartly ask you to review flashcards you know less well.
The smart system is driven by an algorithm called SM-2. When you're ready to start, head on over to Kuma Learn's Spaced Repetition System (SRS).
There are different opinions on this but generally you want to increase your intervals between each review. One resource [2] suggests the ideal review schedule is 1 day, 7 days, 16 days and 35 days (and continue at 35 days). So you should review any new flashcard at this schedule.
JLPT is short for the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test. It's a standardised test to evaluate and certify your proficiency in the Japanese language.
It tests language knowledge, reading ability and listening ability, and is often used by companies to evaluate your lanugage ability if you're a non-native speaker.
JLPT has five levels: N5 is the beginner level and the difficulty increases as you approach N1.
There are various aspects to JLPT (reading, listening, etc), so your level may be higher in some areas than others. You can check your JLPT level with various tools online — search for "JLPT level check" on Google.
Japanese has three alphabets: hiragana ひらがな, katakana カタカナ (~50 characters each) and kanji 漢字 (2,000+ characters). You can read an overview here.
You often start learning hiragana and katakana because they're the basic (phonetic) alphabets that allow you start reading beginners' materials. Because they're phonetic, they're also used to annotate kanji, so you might see small hiragana written above kanji to help the reader ("furigana", which Kuma Learn eBooks also do).
Once you've mastered hiragana and katakana (ひらがな and カタカナ), you can start learning with beginner resources written in Japanese. But you'll soon start to see lots of kanji (漢字).
Tip #1: there are a couple of tricks: (a) learn "radicals" — components of kanji (e.g. 日 in 明) — rather than trying to remember each individual stroke of every kanji and (b) create "stories" for kanji. Stories work because kanji is logographic and human beings tend to remember stories well. A popular method for (b) is called "Heisig's Remembering the Kanji" (RTK).
Tip #2: it's easier to learn kanji when they're read/written in context. For example, you'll learn crime kanji (e.g. detective 探偵, tantei) when you read crime novels or manga such as Detective Conan. Of course, you can also use the Japanese-English picture dictionary, to learn kanji with pictures.
Tip #3: use efficient learning methods such as SRS to learn kanji that you don't know well first. The spaced repetition system will ask you to review kanji that you know less well.
Kuma Learn started with a picture dictionary as well as eBooks but now also offers a Spaced Repetition System (SRS) so that you can learn vocab and kanji efficiently. Soon, you'll have courses to add structure to your learning!
I'm Mario, I speak three languages (English, Japanese, German) and make software for a living. I created Kuma Learn because I want to make learning the Japanese language easier and more fun! Reach out to me at mario@kumalearn.com if you have any thoughts or suggestions.