Online Basic Japanese Learning Course

From your first kana to reading a real Japanese sentence.

Japanese has a reputation for difficulty that is half deserved. The writing system is genuinely demanding — three scripts used together in a single sentence. But the pronunciation is the easiest of any language in this catalogue: five fixed vowels, no tones, no stress patterns, and spelling that is perfectly regular once you know kana. Most learners sound acceptable within weeks.

So this course front-loads the writing. Hiragana first and completely, then katakana — which pays back immediately, because so much modern Japanese vocabulary is borrowed from English and written in it. Then how kanji actually work, with a first sixty chosen for what you will really see on signs and menus.

After that comes the grammar, which is more regular than English: particles that mark each word’s role, a verb system with barely any irregulars, and one set of polite endings that conjugates everything.

What makes this course different

It teaches the polite ます form throughout, and says why. Japanese encodes your relationship with the listener in the grammar. Using plain forms too early is one of the few real social errors a learner can make, and most beginner courses never explain this clearly.

It drops romaji deliberately. Roman letters support the first lessons and then disappear, because learners who stay on romaji stall.

It is practical about counters. The counter system is genuinely awkward, so the course teaches the three that matter and tells you to point at everything else — which is what works.

How it is organised

Six modules: getting started, hiragana, katakana and kanji, grammar, everyday Japanese, and reading practice. Four review quizzes, and two free preview lessons.