Learn Japanese

Start at the kana

The Japanese on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 491 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded Japanese voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random.

• 46hiragana
• 10digits
• 15pronunciation rules
• 300core words
• 60everyday phrases
• 60sentences

Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the on-ramp teaches them:

• か → が — two strokes (dakuten ゛) voice a kana: ka→ga, sa→za, ta→da, ha→baがっこう — school
• は → ぱ — a small circle (handakuten ゜) turns the h-row into pえんぴつ — pencil
• っ — a SMALL つ doubles the next consonant and adds a beat of silenceきって — postage stamp

Your first Japanese phrases

The first phrase and sentence cards of the on-ramp, each spoken in a recorded voice:

• お元気ですか o-gen-ki-des-ka — how are you?
• はじめまして ha-ji-me-ma-shi-te — nice to meet you (first time)
• よろしくおねがいします yo-ro-shi-ku o-ne-gai-shi-mas — pleased to meet you
• 私は学生です。 wa-ta-shi wa gak-sei des — I am a student.
• 私はアメリカ人です。 wa-ta-shi wa a-me-ri-ka-jin des — I am American.

What Japanese actually costs a beginner

Kanji is deliberately not taught as letters, because a kanji is a word rather than a sound and a card for one would have nothing honest to write as its pronunciation. It appears where it belongs: inside the words, phrases and sentences, spelled the way Japanese actually spells them, with the reading beside it. The other early hurdles are rhythmic rather than visual — the small tsu that doubles a consonant and adds a beat of silence, the long vowels that are two beats and not one, and the topic marker that is written ha and said wa. Every one of them is a card with a recorded voice, because none of them can be learned from the page.