This is a website for beginner-level learners, where you can learn about hiragana, katakana, greetings and some Japanese signs. The site and is simple and easy to use, and is presented by Meiji University's Japanese Language Education Center.

• You can read about Japanese syllables and accents.
• You can learn about pronunciation and how to write hiragana and katakana. and you can also listen to spoken Japanese.
• You can practise greetings while watching short videos.
• There are photos of the kinds of signs you often see in daily life in Japan (Toilet, Entrance, Exit, No Entry etc.) and you can hear audio for these too.

How to...

These are the main study contents.

Learning Kana

There is an explanation here of the writing system in Japan, and you can study both hiragana and katakana.

Choose a syllable from the chart and you'll go to a screen that looks like the one above.
Example vocabulary is introduced at the top.
Click on the speaker icon to hear the Japanese pronunciation.
In the lower part, you'll find the romaji for the sound of that syllable, the stroke order, pronunciation and how it is written in katakana.

Learning basic greetings

Click on each greeting and you can see accents displayed to help you understand how to pronounce each, plus a video in which the phrase is used.

There are 11 basic greetings in total.

Frequent Signs

The site has a collection of signs and markings that can be seen for real in and around town.
Click on each one to find out its meaning and how to read and pronounce the Japanese.

At present there are 12 different signs introduced on the site.

As well as this, in the 'Useful Links' section there is a collection of links to various other learning websites, complete with a short description of each.

As this website comes complete with videos for learning kana and greetings, images from around real towns and opportunities to listen to the spoken language, we think it is a good recommendation for learners who have just begun to study Japanese.