Best Ways to Learn Japanese

Rosetta Stone has been developing constantly throughout all their active years and it does show results. One of the things in their online Japanese classes that no one actually argues against is that all the audio in the lessons is actually recorded by true native speakers, crystal clear and appealing. Let's admit it, with a language as difficult as Japanese and with it being not the most demanded on the market, many companies make do with audio recorded by advanced-level foreigners, which may be awesome but won't be the same as the native speaker's speech. So in this aspect, learning Japanese with Rosetta Stone is a good choice. Going for a bit of nagging, though, many users noticed that the Japanese speech in this course is deliberately slower and more pronounced than the way people in Japan speak so you might need a bit of getting used to the speaking speed after the course. However, we believe it is not a big issue in today's world when you can watch some Japanese show or anime to train, and good slow pronunciation might actually help with understanding.

Adding to the great level of recorded audio, there is also the Rosetta Stone's TruACCENT™ technology that will help you develop your own pronunciation. It does fall for the same category as the recorded speech, as in you'll be speaking rather slowly, but it helps a great deal. And when you are done with your first lessons and are ready to try speaking out loud, Rosetta Stone offers you native speakers as tutors; you can speak with a real person who will correct your mistakes and encourage you to go on.

Rosetta's courses are offered as a downloadable desktop course, as a CD disk, and as online lessons. All three of them are quite good but online subscription offers the best possibilities for the price. It is the only option you can use on-the-go thanks to the Rosetta Stone app and downloadable audio, and it also includes a phrasebook, some books for you to read in the language you learn, and the aforementioned speech recognition and live tutoring sessions. It is flexible and convenient. All in all, Rosetta Stone might very well be your best way to learn Japanese online.

So what distinguishes Pimsleur from all the other audio courses for Japanese learning? First and foremost, you won't find many systems with a peculiar phonetics learning like the one Pimsleur offers. It's not a completely new approach in and of itself but only a handful of systems do actually apply it to learning languages as an adult. That is when you learn Japanese with Pimsleur, the voice in the program will teach you longer words starting from the last syllable. This is the way most kids learn their native language and it does, in fact, bring exceptional results with adults as well. Such a system is also highly effective when you, a native English (or another European language) speaker try to learn to speak Japanese, a language not only complicated by itself but in addition posing extra difficulty to us since its phonetical structure is completely foreign.

Another thing that Pimsleur incorporates in its Japanese learning course and other language courses is a somewhat modified SRS, Spaced Repetition System. It was actually created by Paul Pimsleur himself. In his version of the system, the words and phrases are repeated after quite strict time periods which get longer after each time. At first, you will hear them really often, like after 10 seconds, then the gaps will grow more and more until, finally, the word is secured in your permanent memory.

We'd like to stress that Pimsleur will teach you to speak and understand spoken Japanese, the skills essential for any and all travelers to Japan but mostly irrelevant to those who strive to learn Japanese because they are fans of Japanese comics—manga—or want to study this language thoroughly. Pimsleur will not teach you to write or read in Japanese, the PDFs that come with the course are scarce and insufficient to learn Japanese in all its aspects. But what we can assure you is that your pronunciation and listening/speaking skills will benefit enormously from a course like Pimsleur.

There are five core sections in Rocket Languages course, each covering a certain aspect of the language. There are audio lessons with interactive participation where you can speak with the program, repeat the sentences you've learned, and the voice recognition engine will actually assess your pronunciation (this feature is fairly new and therefore not perfect but it is a good start). Writing lessons offer you the possibility to type the words and see if you do it right. If your computer or gadget lacks Japanese keyboard Rocket has a display keyboard. You will find a lot of info on Japanese culture there as well as the language mechanics presented in written, audio, and sometimes video format. We've already mentioned the survival kit, and, finally, there are flashcards. The fun thing about them, by the way, is that you can attach your own images to the words, like anime characters, for example.

When you complete the lesson and then a module you will have to pass a little examination to proceed, with the bar set at 80% of material covered. You can, of course, come back and refresh your knowledge.

As a final touch, we'd like to point out that in addition to overall sophisticated approach to thoroughly learn Japanese, Rocket Languages also makes the process fun since there are exciting little games to play while you study and a possibility to track your progress and earn badges which you can later show off to your friends, family, and Learners Forum mates (you can also ask them questions, by the way).

The price of lessons with teacher found via the coLanguage website is decided by the teachers themselves and stated on the search results page so you can know right away what to expect with each tutor and compare them. Some teachers offer their potential students a trial lesson, free of charge—you will see it in your search results as well, right below the price. In fact, the search for the teacher on the coLanguage site is quite simple and convenient: you can state the days you want your teacher available, the language you feel the most comfortable speaking, the price range you are ready to pay, the topics you want to discuss, and check if you need an exam preparation course. The teachers that satisfy all parameters will pop up, narrowing the selection and thus helping you make a decision faster.

coLanguage is a service recognized by many, their teachers are usually all certified specialists and years of experience. And coLanguage has a feature not often offered by online courses. That is an option to receive a CEFR certificate to prove your language level. That may be no JLPT but it is still a proof good enough to work in some companies (if your level is high).

It's easy as A-B-C. You go to the Fiverr website, type Japanese in the search bar, and you get all the offers (or Gigs) where Japanese is included in some way. Then you refine your search with the menu on the left—check the "Online Lessons" category. Or you can follow the link we've provided, it's already customized.

In your search, you can set the price range you are ready to pay, the level of the seller, their language of tutoring (your native tongue or a language you know well enough to freely communicate when you do not understand what your opponent is saying in Japanese), and delivery time—the time in which you need your request fulfilled. See what the freelancers from all over the world can offer you, check each option and find the best one that fits all your requirements. What's the best thing here is that with the prices starting from $5 and a possibility to buy just one single lesson you may try a number of sellers and find your perfect tutor without it hurting your wallet in the process.

As Fiverr is a freelance platform mostly, saying you will definitely find a professional teacher with many years of experience there to learn Japanese and be fluent in it might be a bit of a stretch. However, the possibility of finding a native speaker to be your conversational partner, for example, or someone to assist you in learning Japanese on your own, to explain the bits and pieces you find challenging in your workbooks? Pretty high. You might use this service occasionally, when you need, and not as a constant tutoring, like with coLangulage, for example. It is pretty awesome this way.