Sites You Should Not Use To Learn Japanese

[KyleGoetz]

I think this should be made a sticky, and just post sites we think have little, no, or negative pedagogical value.

123japanese.com
Why? There are multiple misspellings of basic words, basically it only uses romaji, and someone there has disclosed to me that not everything that goes on the site is even reviewed by someone who speaks Japanese well.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

I think this should be made a sticky, and just post sites we think have little, no, or negative pedagogical value.

123japanese.com
Why? There are multiple misspellings of basic words, basically it only uses romaji, and someone there has disclosed to me that not everything that goes on the site is even reviewed by someone who speaks Japanese.

Can we append that to "speaks Japanese to a native level" for the sake of fairness. The creator obviously knows some Japanese; the person who suggested it says they have studied for several years but they are presenting their knowledge in a flawed way. It's the old thing- Just because you Know, doesn't mean you know everything and does not mean you can Teach.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Columbine

The creator obviously knows some Japanese

That is not apparent to me. I was there about two minutes, kept seeing errors, and quit looking. And the support staff had this to say to me

Most of the content is reviewed by a person who speaks Japanese

Note that says "most," not "all." This implies some is reviewed by no Japanese speakers for any definition of "speaker."

It suffices to say that the site is not trustworty. I'll change it to "speaks Japanese well" though.

Also, Tae Kim is not a native Japanese speaker and doesn't speak it natively (as per his personal blog). But his written Japanese is indistinguishable from a native's at my level of Japanese. Regardless, what he purports to teach is well within his abilities to do, regardless of whether he speaks at a native level. But his site is still eminently trustworthy.

Heck, I'm not a native speaker, but I can still teach many Japanese lessons and be 99–100% accurate. Speakingwise is a different matter. Get to around third-year Japanese at a US university and it would be harder for me. I'd imagine MMM and Nyororin could teach a full four years of written Japanese. I don't know if they have non-native accents that could hinder their speaking instruction, but their writing is excellent. If either of them had a Japanese teaching site, I would likely trust it. But by their own admission, neither speaks natively or at a native level.

[murasaki11]

Instead of bashing the website maybe we should help point out the errors to them. Building a website is hard and I must say that website has the most information I've seen. They are trying. Why bash them when we can help them. Its not like its a horrible website. Those errors were just little mistakes. Missing a second letter. The site didn't seem to follow the "oo change to "ou" rule. Which in romaji, there isn't really rules because its romaji.

Their website does say that a lot of it is under construction.

The person who made the website must know a lot about Japanese because a lot of information is there. Spelling mistakes indicate that they just typed it wrong. Just like any english site, there can be mistakes they just need to be pointed out.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

That is not apparent to me. I was there about two minutes, kept seeing errors, and quit looking. And the support staff had this to say to meNote that says "most," not "all." This implies some is reviewed by no Japanese speakers for any definition of "speaker."

It suffices to say that the site is not trustworty. I'll change it to "speaks Japanese well" though.

Ah, I didn't see the addendum from the site. You make some good points that I hadn't considered in the argument and you're right, native and knowledge may not be synonymous. That's kind of what I was trying to say with Knowing not necessarily meaning you can teach.

Originally Posted by murasaki11

Instead of bashing the website maybe we should help point out the errors to them. Building a website is hard and I must say that website has the most information I've seen. They are trying. Why bash them when we can help them. Its not like its a horrible website. Those errors were just little mistakes. Missing a second letter. The site didn't seem to follow the "oo change to "ou" rule. Which in romaji, there isn't really rules because its romaji.

Their website does say that a lot of it is under construction.

The person who made the website must know a lot about Japanese because a lot of information is there. Spelling mistakes indicate that they just typed it wrong. Just like any english site, there can be mistakes they just need to be pointed out.

With all due respect, you're also a complete beginner and you yourself admitted you don't know what to be looking for to judge the value of this kind of learning website. If you had, you wouldn't have asked for a second opinion. I'm only an intermediate (maybe lower advanced) level student but I've looked at a LOT of sites and a LOT of textbooks and so have a lot of people on this site. There is a huge difference between volume of content and correctness, and volume of content and worthwhile information. This site has a moderate amount of content, but it also has a significant number of errors at a BASIC level. If it cannot manage the basics, then it should not be trusted with more complex information either. Would you trust a teacher to teach you maths if they told you 12x5 was 62? I wouldn't.

This is not to say that the site ~cannot~ or ~will not~ improve. But in it's current state, it needs much more work to make it a valuable resource for beginner Japanese students. I agree, it would be great if people could volunteer to help refine it, but there are other great websites already available.

[duo797]

Originally Posted by murasaki11

Instead of bashing the website maybe we should help point out the errors to them. Building a website is hard and I must say that website has the most information I've seen. They are trying. Why bash them when we can help them. Its not like its a horrible website. Those errors were just little mistakes. Missing a second letter. The site didn't seem to follow the "oo change to "ou" rule. Which in romaji, there isn't really rules because its romaji.

Their website does say that a lot of it is under construction.

The person who made the website must know a lot about Japanese because a lot of information is there. Spelling mistakes indicate that they just typed it wrong. Just like any english site, there can be mistakes they just need to be pointed out.

^^; My post is actually for your benefit. 'oo' doesn't always change to 'ou' when writing. Words I can think of this are 大きい（おおきい） ookii. Also,　通る（とおる） tooru.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by duo797

^^; My post is actually for your benefit. 'oo' doesn't always change to 'ou' when writing. Words I can think of this are 大きい（おおきい） ookii. Also,　通る（とおる） tooru.

Hahaha, and here I should also sort of contradict myself. Even in romaji there are rules and set ways of writing it. :|

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by murasaki11

Instead of bashing the website maybe we should help point out the errors to them.

I'm not bashing them. I'm telling noobs not to use the site. There's a difference. Your suggestion would essentially be to encourage people to use a site that is known to have shoddy pedagogical standards.

Building a website is hard and I must say that website has the most information I've seen. They are trying.

I don't want a teacher who tries. I want a teacher who teaches me correct information.

Why bash them when we can help them.

Because I don't want to help a site that is trying to teach Japanese and doing a poor job. I want to tell people to avoid it.

Its not like its a horrible website.

Wrong.

Those errors were just little mistakes.

A lot of little mistakes add up to a big mistake.

Missing a second letter.

Or, you know, completely misspelling "chiitaa" as "cheeta," e.g.

The site didn't seem to follow the "oo change to "ou" rule. Which in romaji, there isn't really rules because its romaji.

Which is precisely another reason the site is crap.

Their website does say that a lot of it is under construction.

Good for them. Do you want to learn from a textbook that is still being edited?

The person who made the website must know a lot about Japanese because a lot of information is there.

Not true.

Spelling mistakes indicate that they just typed it wrong.

Not when a large percentage of words have spelling mistakes. It indicates the person making the site does not speak Japanese to any degree necessary to teach it.

[duo797]

Originally Posted by Columbine

Hahaha, and here I should also sort of contradict myself. Even in romaji there are rules and set ways of writing it. :|

This is true, there are a few styles of romanization for Japanese, just like chinese and I assume Korean. The biggest problem with roomaji, other than reading english letters, is that each person breaks up words differently when they write in roomaji. Along with that, if someone was to write with NO spaces in roomaji it would be a huge, difficult to read mess. Roomaji doesn't come with the added benefit of kanji to help easily discern words when you're reading a sentence.

Edit: I'm not trying to pile on, here, but with regard to more information meaning more knowledge I will call direct BS on that. I am a college student, and if there's one thing I'm good at doing, it's adding lots of superfluous information or varying sentence structure to say the same thing and lengthen papers. What could probably be expressed in 2 pages may be done in 4 because I'm more descriptive or wordy than I need to be.

Another website that no one tends to suggest (because it's shorter) but is helpful nonetheless, is nihongoresources.com. Also, if you're interested he's got a big 関西弁（かんさいべん）Kansai-ben word list that I've seen referenced in other things that teach/discuss Kansai-ben.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by duo797

This is true, there are a few styles of romanization for Japanese, just like chinese and I assume Korean. The biggest problem with roomaji, other than reading english letters, is that each person breaks up words differently when they write in roomaji. Along with that, if someone was to write with NO spaces in roomaji it would be a huge, difficult to read mess. Roomaji doesn't come with the added benefit of kanji to help easily discern words when you're reading a sentence.

I noticed that. Even when you use the same system to transliterate the characters, the spacing seems to be a free-for-all. I'd personally never put a space in 'konnichiwa' but others will. Never mind the homonym thing as you said. "ii kami desu ne!"

It may be good, but is it hair, a god or some paper? Who knows!