Denshi Jisho

Website: Denshi Jisho

URL : http://jisho.org/

Cost: Free

Languages: Japanese, English

The Denshi Jisho front page awaits your search.

Finding good dictionaries online can be somewhat of a pain for any language, but this is especially true of languages that are not written in roman script, such as Japanese. Many Japanese dictionaries online are either romanji (Japanese transliterated into a roman script) only, which can be quite useless for Japanese to English searches due to the high amount of Japanese homonyms. Others assume you’re an advanced student of the language, or even a native speaker, and thus gloss over information assumed already known. Even actually inputting Japanese can be a great pain, since many users don’t have Japanese fonts installed on their system by default.

Denshi Jisho is an improvement over many dictionaries on these issues. A great deal of thought has been put into Denshi Jisho, and that handiwork has made it a wonderful resource for any student of Japanese. The site not provides excellent English to Japanese searches, which  turn up word meanings complete with slang and synonyms. It also provides the most user-friendly Japanese to English searches available on the web, as well as some truly outstanding kanji tools. The entire search system works re markedly well and as a result, makes finding the right word to say a lot easier.

LiveMocha

Website: LiveMocha
URL: http://www.livemocha.com/
Cost: Mostly free (some Premium, optional content)
Languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish

Livemocha: The Social Language Learning Website

The most important aspect of learning any language is practice, practice, practice. However, for many students just beginning their journey on the road to fluency, practising outside of the classroom can be nearly impossible.  Even assuming he or she can find another person to practice with, the fear of  sounding stupid or making a mistake often paralyses students. As a result, few students get the critical practice they need outside of the classroom.

LiveMocha aims to change the way students speak a language. A combination of both textbook and social networking site, Livemocha is making it easier for students to practice with native speakers by encouraging their users to make friends with those looking to learn their native tongue. Livemocha does a good job  matching  say, English students looking to learn Spanish with Spanish students looking to learn English. How does it work when its all put together? The answer is, surprisingly well.

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