Welcome to the Japanese Online Self-Help Utility, or JOSHU for short. In Japanese, JOSHU literally means "assistant", or "tutor", which is what this website attempts to do to anyone interested in learning the Japanese language.

JOSHU was first created by Nan Puthaaroon for her creative thesis as one of the Plan II requirements. Dr. Naoko Suito (水藤直子) continued to develop this site assisted by various students, TAs, graders, and instructors from UT Austin Japanese Program.

Programming: F. Bickerstaff (Student Technology Assistant), L. Jones (STA), K. Goetz (STA), C. Leng (student developer), A. LaGuette (student developer), M. Rogoysk, A. Young, E. Capps, F. Bai, S. Bai, S. Magliocca, M. Gurch (game), B. Herrera (games), K. Le (games).

Arts, photos, typing etc.: Tan Nguyen, L. Yangyingxong, J. Orland, L. O'Connell, N. Kim, J. Wang, V. Simms, A. Stites, E. Allen, B. Contreras, L. Yang, E. Granados, E. Smith, A. Juarez, K. Wang, J. Nguyen, M. Leonard.

Audio recording (TAs, graders, and instructors at UT Austin): K. Kawachi, A. Hoshino, T. Imai, S. Wakao, Y. Yaguchi, M. Megumi, S. Oshima, K. Abe, T. Motoike, K. Sakamoto, S. Tsujii, M. Togo, K. Amano, M. Amano, Y. Watanabe, T. Sakuma, C. Cooke, and Y. Aida.

Special thanks to the Instructors at UT Austin for drafting and proofreading many of the exercises.

JOSHU has been supported by grants from the UT Austin Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, the UT Austin DIIA (Division of Instructional Innovation & Assessment), and Texas Language Center Professional Development Awards.

Textbooks and References:

• Yookoso! An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese by Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku, 3rd edition © 2006 McGraw-Hill
• Yookoso! Continuing with Contemporary Japanese by Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku, 3rd edition © 2006 McGraw-Hill
• An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese by Akira Miura & Naomi Hanaoka McGloi, revised edition © 2008, The Japan Times
• Genki I: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese by Eri Banno, et al, 2nd edition © 2011, The Japan Times
• Genki II: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese by Eri Banno, et al, 2nd edition © 2011, The Japan Times
• A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar by Seiichi Makino & Michio Tsutsui © 1986 & 1989, The Japan Times
• A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar by Seiichi Makino & Michio Tsutsui © 1995 & 1996, The Japan Times

UT Austin Japanese Program,    Please direct any comments to ”saori.suto アット austin.utexas.edu" (replace "アット" with "@")