Get Fluent and Confident in JAPANESE

Learn hiragana and katakana, not romaji, to build a solid foundation for accurate pronunciation and reading in Japanese, avoiding shortcuts that rely on English alphabets.

Explore Japanese vowel sounds and their similarities to English, focusing on pronouncing the first vowel in pairs of examples like ice, ugly, iPhone, eat, use, it, and action.

Explore fundamental hiragana by pairing consonant and vowel sounds, starting with the k column and practicing around 30 combinations, then move through additional columns and note special pronunciation cases.

Master the correct pronunciation of し (shi) and ち (chi) by distinguishing them from English sounds like chip and cheap, and follow the shown mouth shapes to avoid common errors.

Learn how dakuten and handakuten diacritics modify the basic hiragana consonants, producing ga, da, ba, and pa while preserving vowel sounds, with only certain characters eligible.

Katakana is a Japanese writing system for foreign words, with 46 basic sounds and diacritics like dakuten, used to transcribe loanwords such as America and coffee.

Learn stroke-by-stroke writing of the sa and ta column in katakana, mastering horizontal and vertical strokes, curvature, and one-stroke formations to produce clear kana shapes.

Master stroke-by-stroke writing for the な and ま column, following diagonal, horizontal, vertical, curved strokes, circles, and fishlike shapes with clear, stepwise guidance.

Learn step-by-step stroke orders for the last three columns of characters, mastering horizontal, diagonal, curved strokes, and finishing with circles to write simple Japanese characters by hand.

Master the third column stroke order for Japanese kana, practicing ha and he with two to four strokes, including horizontal, diagonal, and curved lines to ensure proper alignment.

Learn how to pronounce the phrase 'I am a student' in Japanese, explore its casual form, and hear variations using boku and gakusei desu for natural everyday speech.

Explore how Japanese handles formality and negation, switching between formal 'da' and casual 'ja' to say 'not a student' in different social contexts.

Learn how the Japanese particle no marks possession by connecting a person and an object. Practice forming phrases with first, second, and third person pronouns or names using no.

Learn how Japanese demonstrative pronouns function as nouns and adjectives, compare kono, sore, and are, and use topic sentences to clarify referents.

Practice writing and speaking in Japanese by translating short sentences, pronouncing your Japanese aloud, and selecting first and second person pronouns across two exercises per section.

Practice listening and understanding Japanese by hearing five clearly pronounced sentences, writing them down, and replaying the video to reinforce listening accuracy.

Explore the unique Japanese adjective for good, its negative tense, and how its conjugation deviates from standard rules as an exception you must memorize.

Practice topic sentences in Japanese with a focus on a loud voice, repetition, and pronunciation cues. Learn how to add new elements and use a formal sentence ending.

Practice pronouncing the sentence 'I am coming tomorrow' and learn how boku and the topic marker wa set the topic in a Japanese sentence, with a preview of upcoming concepts.

This lecture explains how Japanese adverbs come from adjectives, outlining two paths for i- and na-adjectives and showing that adverbs precede verbs in action descriptions.

Practice Japanese pronunciation and speaking in exercise 1 by translating aloud, posting a video, and reviewing the provided answers for boku sentences.

Explore Japanese pronunciation and question intonation, focusing on topic sentences like 'Is that your house?' and raising pitch to signal questions.