Admin Note: I've listed a few of my ideas about how to keep up on your Japanese language skills or to help you prepare for a trip back to Japan. If you have other ideas or experiences you'd like to share, Contact Us.

Commercial TV Broadcasts from Japan:

My latest iteration of keeping up with my Japanese is free - Stream live TV Broadcasts. On the screenshot below, you can see the networks/stations available listed in the left-side column. Click just below the AQ on the upper left for Japanese TV, then on the broadcast of your choice. Though you may not understand much of especially news broadcasts, I find it gets my ears and mind reacquainted with Japanese. I sometimes look up words I hear repeated in a news story, for instance.

Podcast

If you listen to podcasts, why not add The Konnichiwa Podcast. You can subscribe for your smartphone, or listen to episodes online. Each podcast lasts about 15 minutes and is a half-English, half-Japanese conversation between three individuals living in Japan about a current topic in Japan (Dan (American), Yurie (日本人) and My (Dutch/日本人ancestry). Follow up note: these stopped in Nov 2023 but continue to live via konipo.com landing page, where you should see links to Spotify, Instagram and Patreon.

Dictionary Apps

My favorie iPhone app is Imi wa?, which unfortunately, I understand it is not available for Android smart phones. You can key in English or Japanese Ro-maji and get a translation as well as sentence examples. Both kanji and hiragana appear.