Rebecca Shiraishi-Miles 
Conversation is an essential part of language learning. If you’ve recently started learning Japanese, you’re probably excited and nervous about having your first real live conversation with a native speaker! Maybe you’ve travelled to Japan, found a language exchange partner online or made some Japanese friends in your hometown. Your first few conversations in your … Read more
Smartphone apps are one of your best secret weapons in your mission to learn Japanese. Even busy people have a lot of free time during their day in small chunks in between other tasks. Traveling to school, commuting to work, waiting in line, waiting for a friend: don’t waste this time mindlessly scrolling through your … Read more
Today we’re sharing this awesome infographic which explains why you should learn a second language, as well as how to learn a second language in the most effective way. As you will see in the infographic, if you don’t speak a second language, you’re already in the minority! 65% of the world’s population is bilingual, … Read more
A good dictionary is one of the most essential tools for language learning. Fortunately, the days of lugging around a huge paper dictionary or expensive are gone. These days, if you have a smartphone you can download one of several sophisticated apps which turn your phone into a state-of-the-art Japanese dictionary! We’ve tested out several apps, … Read more
When you’re learning a new language, many people will tell you that you need to go and live in the country where the language is spoken to make real progress. The benefits of studying Japanese in Japan are obvious: You’ll be surrounded by your target language all day, every day. It’s the first thing you’ll … Read more
Kanji: the nemesis of Japanese language learners! The fear of memorising kanji is enough to put some people off Japanese altogether. When people start researching how to learn Japanese, the kanji question comes up a lot. We’ve even heard people ask if it’s possible to learn Japanese without learning kanji. Seriously, guys?! Let’s sort this … Read more
Is Japanese read from right to left or left to right? This is one question that Japanese learners ask a lot. A lot of people have heard that Japanese is read from right to left. Then you actually start learning Japanese, and the phrases in your textbooks are written left to right! What’s going on? … Read more
When you start to learn Japanese, it can be daunting. There are so many new words to learn! What if I told you that you already know a lot of Japanese words? It’s true! Even if you have never studied Japanese before, I’ll bet you know a lot more Japanese words than you realise. This … Read more