This app works best for those who know a little Japanese and want to polish their skills. Just find native speakers of the language you want to learn, who also want to learn your language. This app is language exchange with the added perk of social networking. This was my exact thinking, and I was happy when I found out there were Japanese people interested in learning English who felt the same way. Perhaps you gain the most from a one-on-one interaction, but the money for a private tutor is a little out of your budget. It comes in a beginner version, and also offers an intermediate app for those who want to continue studying.Īt $10 for each Human Japanese app, it may seem like a bit of a hefty investment for a smartphone program, but some users have claimed that knowledge retention with this app has been more successful than with more expensive lessons from private tutors and Japanese language schools. Human Japanese consistently receives high marks for its pace-focused teaching, personability and well-roundedness. Human Japanese is an app that incorporates this important aspect of Japan into its curriculum, by using breaks in between lessons to offer cultural insights about Japan that give greater weight and context to the overall instruction. With its paid model, JA Sensei offers a myriad of teaching tools to guide you all the way to N1-level proficiency, with one of its standouts including a kanji section that allows you to practice writing with the proper stroke order directly on your smartphone or tablet screen.Īsk anyone who has studied Japanese, and they will tell just how unique it is in the way the language is intertwined with every aspect of the culture. To help students retain their knowledge, JA Sensei employs quizzes that allow you to strengthen lessons you’ve learned, and work extra hard to correct errors you’ve made. The app also includes a phrasebook and culture section to help those traveling to Japan for the first time, or just starting their Japanese learning journey. The JA Sensei app breaks down into the following sections:
However, casual conversations with friends may come off a little awkward if you go heavy on the niceties.Īs one of the more feature-packed Japanese language apps, JA Sensei covers reading comprehension, kanji stroke order practice, and situational Japanese lessons to help conversations go more smoothly. This is completely fine if, like myself, you work in Japan and want to communicate better in your office environment. It will be almost exclusively formal (polite) Japanese. One significant drawback of Pimsleur Japanese is in the type of Japanese you will be learning to speak. This method of teaching helps you to more organically absorb grammar rules in a conversational setting, as opposed to the method of hard memorization used just from studying rules charts without any natural context. However, what sets Pimsleur Japanese apart from other audio lesson apps is in its question/recall/response format, which many users have attested to as a major element to improving their conversational ability.Īs someone who has experimented with audio lesson apps myself, I can also say there is a noticeable difference. The Pimsleur Method has been widely-known for many years, but has only recently been made available in app form.Īs Pimsleur Japanese is an audio format language tool, its primary focus is on increasing your Japanese speaking ability, as opposed to reading or writing. If you’re a survivalist who is tired of just getting by, and want to beef up your vocabulary and comprehension, Pimsleur Japanese is tailored to fortifying your proficiency in the basics and building confidence in your conversations with native speakers. If you’re looking to accelerate your Japanese speaking ability, these are 5 apps that I have found useful in my personal quest. There’s no shortage of apps that can help you strengthen your knowledge in different aspects of the Japanese language, from grammar, to writing and proper pronunciation. What Is the Best App for Learning Japanese? Honorable Mention for Kanji Study: WaniKani.What Is the Best App for Learning Japanese?.