
How we invented new ways to teach Japanese - jrehor
http://making.duolingo.com/how-we-invented-a-new-way-to-teach-one-of-the-most-difficult-languages-to-learn
======
panglott
"To show just how complex this can get, let’s take a simple English phrase –
“I love you” – and dissect the many ways in which it can be said in Japanese.
Spoiler alert: it’s not such a simple phrase in Japanese. One of our course
contributors, Sho, estimated and found that there can actually be as many as
248,026 ways to say “I love you” in Japanese!"

These kind statistics are a kind of lie in themselves. You can say something
like "omae wo aishiteimasu", but that's no more a normal way to say "I love
you" than "I'm bonkers for that shithead". That has nothing to do with the
grammar, it's lexical. "omae wo aishiteimasu" has a different meaning from
"anata ga suki da yo".

~~~
Naritai
This seems like a modern version of the old claim "Inuit have 100+ words for
snow". I've found that's true for most of the claims of "X language has Y
words for concept Z!!!" Inevitably it comes down to one of two things:
-language X has a slightly different concept of 'word' than English does (such
as allowing for conjugations to refer to past or future states) -The english
word is question has a variety of context specific meanings or applications
(such as 'love'), and each one of those meanings, even though their context-
specific meaning would never be misinterpreted by an english speaker, has a
different word in language X.

~~~
panglott
It's a widely known myth, but I'm pretty sure that Inuit absolutely has 100+
words for snow: it's just that's a meaningless and unsurprising assertion. The
Inuit languages are polysynthetic and can say in a word what European
languages need a sentence for, so Inuit can sidestep Zipf's law on word
frequency.

But also, English has plenty of words for snow, here's 50:
[https://www.thoughtco.com/snow-terms-
types-3010117](https://www.thoughtco.com/snow-terms-types-3010117)

~~~
Naritai
Yes, I think we agree. Thank you for the additional info / detail.

------
rootsudo
I learned hiragana and katakana using the "Kanji Study" app by Chase Colburn.
On the google app store.

I don't know the guy, but the app is simply amazing. Repetion, through fun
methods, I learned hiragana as I rode the Tokyo metro and katakana too. (It
also helped that everywhere was both Kanas)

Since we're all talking about how we all picked up some Japanese, I thought
I'd throw it out there. I normally never donate to apps, but this is one app
that is amazingly well polished, has a beautiful UI and the UX makes me
guility that I don't sit down and do it daily.

Hell, thanks to it, I can transliterate japanese songs into kana and with the
Kanji learning moudles I had fun translating last names into english and
saying them. Nothing helped me more in making friends at random mixers or
networking events then seeing someones Japanese name, properly addressing them
and embarrassing myself by talking horrible Japanese.

But, Reading it, it's amazing. The manga too, I can read all the manga now if
it has nice usage of furigana. Hentai manga, does not, though.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindtwiste...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindtwisted.kanjistudy&hl=en)

Really, I don't know the guy, the app is great and, without it my time in
Japan would've been greatly not as quality. I made friends, thanks to this
app, that I know I will know forever.

~~~
LSCanaan
Anything similar on iOS you'd mind to recommend?

~~~
TomSawyer
I liked this bundle:
[https://appsto.re/us/u8wS2.i](https://appsto.re/us/u8wS2.i)

~~~
TomSawyer
I just noticed that Duolingo also released Hiragana and Katakana stacks via
their spaced repetition flashcard app, TinyCards.

------
neves
I've been told by a friend of mine that speaks Japanese that the most
difficult aspect is that how you speak changes due the social setting. It's
not just the syntax, you must learn how to speak in each different situation.

Here is Richard Feynman talking about the same problem:

While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much
harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis and do
things. I took lessons from a Japanese man every day for an hour. One day he
was teaching me the word for "see." "All right," he said. "You want to say,
'May I see your garden?' What do you say?" I made up a sentence with the word
that I had just learned. "No, no!" he said. "When you say to someone, 'Would
you like to see my garden? you use the first 'see.' But when you want to see
someone else's garden, you must use another 'see,' which is more polite."
"Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?" is essentially what you're
saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella's
garden, you have to say something like, "May I observe your gorgeous garden?"
So there's two different words you have to use. Then he gave me another one:
"You go to a temple, and you want to look at the gardens..." I made up a
sentence, this time with the polite "see." "No, no!" he said. "In the temple,
the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be
equivalent to 'May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?" Three or
four different words for one idea, because when I'm doing it, it's miserable;
when you're doing it, it's elegant.

~~~
jhpriestley
I only took a couple courses in japanese, but I'm pretty sure that this quote
vastly overstates the difficulty of politeness levels for verbs.

Each verb has different forms for formal/informal/very formal, but they're
highly regular. For example "iku" is "go" and "ikimasu" is "go (polite)".
"wakaru" is "understand" and "wakarimasu" is "understand (polite)". It's not
like you have to learn four forms of each verb, you learn the basic one and
then you know the rest. The ultra-formal versions, which are more rarely used,
are also regular - they involve the infinitive of the verb plus a conjugated
auxiliary verb IIRC, like saying "presume to go", "presume to understand" etc.

~~~
Arnavion
I believe Feynman's quote is not referring to politeness of the "miru" verb
but of using different verbs entirely. For example meeting someone is both
"au" and "(o)me ni kakaru" with similar difference of formality.

------
GolDDranks
I shameless self-plug: As a successful Japanese learner (and since then, a
Japanese teacher and recently a software engineer in a Japanese company), I
was interviewed recently about learning Japanese:
[https://www.koipun.com/blog/learning-japanese-by-
listening-a...](https://www.koipun.com/blog/learning-japanese-by-listening-
and-reading)

Why should you possibly be interested: because not only did I learn Japanese
and taught it, I also did a fair part of reading about the research on
language acquisition and neurolinguistics as a part of my master's studies, so
I know what I'm talking about.

~~~
pmoriarty
From what you say in that article about the importance of listening to
language used in context, you might be interested in a method of language
learning called TPR (Total Physical Response). I've written about it before
here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13910080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13910080)

It's been super effective for me at learning vocabulary and grammar (in
context), and I much prefer that method over things like flashcards, Anki,
supermemmo, etc.

~~~
csa
TPR has its strengths and weaknesses:

1\. It requires a healthy ego. Some people feel like it's childish since it is
more like playing games than language learning. Other folks don't like making
mistakes all the time.

2\. It is great for languages that do not already have documented grammars
and/or dictionaries. I believe the Summer Institute of Linguistics uses this
method in some areas.

3\. It naturally caps out in utility at around CEFR A2 / ACTFL intermediate.
While many Americans call this level of proficiency "fluent", it really just
scratches the surface of a language.

Regardless, I'm glad you found this method and that it works for you.
Congrats!

~~~
pmoriarty
Yeah, I would certainly not characterize TPR as a magic bullet, claim that it
would fulfill all your language learning needs, or that by using it alone you
will achieve complete fluency.

I view it just a great way to jump start vocabulary and grammar learning and
comprehension. TPR will need to be supplemented with other techniques,
especially for production of spoken language, pronunciation, reading, writing,
cultural sensitivity, social cues, etc. Also, in my experience, TPR has been
most effective in one-on-one sessions with a tutor, while there's something to
be said for classroom instruction where the student can interact with other
students, and something to be said for interaction with native speakers of the
languages outside any kind of formal instruction.

So, yeah, TPR is just another tool. A tool which I've found useful for certain
purposes, but not the ultimate be-all-and-end-all of language learning. Is
anything?

------
laurieg
One thing that I notice is missing from most (all?) online language courses is
wider context. Not cultural context, but basic grammatical context. Most of
them on focus on learning words or sentences.

This is fine for similar languages. When you learn French you can learn that
'the' equals 'le' and 'la' and apply some extra rules to smooth over the
differences.

It totally falls down on languages that have less in common. Almost all
Japanese natives who speak English struggle with 'the' and 'a'. (this isn't a
criticism, just a fact of life). I wonder if part of the problem is that most
people learn languages on the sentence level. Read the following sentences:

The man went to the store.

A man went to the store.

Which one is correct? Well, there's certainly nothing grammatically wrong with
either, but depending on the situation one or the other could be very
misleading, confusing and unnatural. Most people, at least in Japan, learn
from textbooks showing examples like this. It tells you absolutely nothing
about 'the' and 'a'! So they end up reading huge explanations in their native
language and come away thinking 'Wow, foreign languages are hard'.

~~~
leojg
I agree, I think that an online course on its own is not enought to really
learn a language, I view them more as a vocabulary and grammar source.

The context or everyday interactions have to be learned in some other place
like forums, conversations, movies, etc

------
shawnps
I started learning Japanese around 8 years ago, and I've never been a fan of
saying it's "the most difficult language to learn." It's like learning
anything else, if you enjoy learning it and are motivated enough, you'll get
better. Also I'm surprised when people assume the grammar is difficult - to
me, the "flexible grammatical structures" as mentioned in the article are a
good thing because it gives you more leeway to make "mistakes."

If you're learning Japanese in school, or even if you're learning it on your
own, I recommend the Genki I and Genki II books, and the corresponding
workbooks. If you really enjoy it and want to come to Japan to use your newly
acquired language skills, I'm confident that after getting through those 2
books you'll have enough Japanese to get by and you can have fun wandering
around, reading signs, chatting with strangers, etc. Don't be discouraged by
people saying that Japanese is so difficult to learn.

Edit: also, I hope this comment didn't come off as too negative. I think it's
great that Duolingo is doing this, and if it gets more people to enjoy
learning Japanese then that's fantastic.

~~~
creshal
> Also I'm surprised when people assume the grammar is difficult - to me, the
> "flexible grammatical structures" as mentioned in the article are a good
> thing because it gives you more leeway to make "mistakes."

That makes speaking the language easier, but it makes _understanding_
sentences harder in the beginning, because you get a bucket of word soup
dumped on your head and have to figure out what is supposed to go where.

Of course, articulating yourself correctly is the bigger (or more long-term)
challenge when learning a second language, but in the case of Japanese you
have a higher up-front learning curve than with most other languages.

~~~
panglott
Yes, the grammar of Japanese has a very simple internal logic and is easy to
learn, although quite different from European languages.

The problem is all the words, and there are no cognates.

~~~
tragomaskhalos
Exactly. The claim that Japanese _grammar_ is very difficult seems bizarre to
me because the morphology is so regular, and I don't subscribe to the idea
that flexibility and omission of words makes it harder either, more that you
just have to attune yourself to it. No, the elephants in the room are (a) the
vocab and (b) Kanji.

------
twoquestions
I took Japanese in college, and the worst thing wasn't the writing system,
vocabulary or grammar. They were hard mind you, but far from impossible,
nothing flash cards couldn't fix.

What was (and is) very hard for me is how (in general) the bulk of Japanese
communication happens in what is unsaid. Even trying to work through patio11's
Stockfighter course, I found it very hard to 'read between the lines' in what
he was saying to find out what I was supposed to do. I also have zero low-
level programming experience, so that probably didn't help.

I hope Duolingo mentions this and has training for "what do they _really_
mean", as trusting what they say at face value seems like a good way to cause
an incident. This may also be useful in understanding American Southerners or
cop dramas, where direct communication is strictly verboten.

~~~
Cerium
I met my wife because sometimes I "can't read the air". We were pen pals and
she wanted to tell me about a graduation trip she was going on across the
country. I didn't know it at the time, but just to be polite she invited me on
the trip with her, expecting that I would understand and decline. I didn't,
instead I accepted! We went on an amazing trip and fell in love.

------
jordigh
One thing about learning languages that works for me. Don't look at them as a
bunch of rules to memorise. The article is talking about thousands of ways of
saying "I love you" to indicate how complicated Japanese is. In reality, this
complexity is somewhat artificial because you are considering way too many
rules and variations, the vast majority of these combinations are almost never
actually used. To use an crude analogy HN might be comfortable with, a
Japanese language compiler could optimise away most of the language.

I'm glad the course seems designed around this consideration. It's goal-
oriented: talk about everyday human things, clothes, weather, food, family.
It's never been helpful for me to memorise vocabulary lists without a context
to say them in. Instead, putting myself into situations where certain things
must be said or understood greatly improved my competence.

After a while, your language instinct kicks in and you start to generate your
own internal rules for the language, which will approximate or match the rules
that native speakers have internalised.

I suppose this is can all summarised as, well duh, of course immersion works,
but I wanted to say it anyway.

------
reustle
I've been learning japanese (and living in japan) for the past few months, and
tried out duolingos new course when they released it yesterday. I've used
quite a few different apps and books, and I must say I was pretty unimpressed.
Their lessons give very little info on what you're learning, and with things
like kanji it only teaches you the sound and not the meaning. I will
experiment with it a bit more, but I've already done the first 6 or 7 lessons
(chapters?) and am not impressed.

If you want to see an incredibly well built japanese learning tool, look at
Human Japanese [http://www.humanjapanese.com/](http://www.humanjapanese.com/)
\- i am in no way affiliated, just a happy student

~~~
jim-jim-jim
> with things like kanji it only teaches you the sound and not the meaning

Damn, that's precisely the opposite of how you should learn them.

My Japanese ability pretty much exploded after I set aside two months to study
the kanji divorced from their readings with James Heisig's method. Totally
worth it. The readings come with time.

~~~
voidz
Who is James Heisig, and what is his method? I'd like my Japanese ability to
explode too!

~~~
jim-jim-jim
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_kanji](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_kanji)

------
adrianN
The guys at Language Log have a (series of) very interesting posts about how
to learn Japanese and Chinese. The comments are a gold-mine as well

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10554](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10554)

------
cantrevealname
I'm not criticizing Duolingo, but I'm wondering if language apps are like gym
memberships -- people sign up enthusiastically but after the first month, 90%
don't or can't continue.

Learning a new language as an adult is an incredibly difficult undertaking;
much more so than persevering with the gym. The dropout rate must be huge.

~~~
jim-jim-jim
I tried Duolingo for French and Russian, and dropped both after a week.

Part of it is that I have nothing invested in either language and was just
curious, but I also think Duolingo itself is a bit flawed; it repeats way too
much material and makes you jump through too many hoops. I was busy and it was
a hassle.

I think if you're going to study a language, a textbook + Anki is the way to
go. If you tell Anki you know something, the algorithm believes you and shows
it to you less often so you have more time to focus on what matters. It
doesn't make you translate "the black cat" five times in one sitting.

~~~
mfringel
I tried using Anki, but creating/formatting index cards was a total pain
(especially for Mandarin), and I didn't feel like doing a graphic design
project for every character I wanted to learn.

If there was an easier way to auto-generate flash cards, I could see Anki
being more interesting.

~~~
krrrh
Gabriel Wyner has some good strategies for speeding up flash card generation
in his Fluent Forever book and website. The primary one for me being a simple
AppleScript that took a word and opened up several safari tabs with google
image search, pronunciation (forvo.com), a few online dictionairies, etc. You
could take the scripting further, but manually picking the best image to
represent an idea adds a lot. Another big help was a script for Anki that
bulk-generated text-to-speech for words (which for German was incredibly
reliable using Apple's built-in voice fonts). Adding an audio component to
vocabulary cards gives another pathway for memory to become established.

The unfortunate truth is that the mental connections that come from building
your own deck is a good portion of the benefit that comes from using Anki.

------
netgusto
Where is the Japanese course on Duolingo ? I can't find it in their language
list : [https://en.duolingo.com/register](https://en.duolingo.com/register) ?

~~~
sapphire_tomb
Was just coming here to ask the very same thing!

~~~
apricot13
Its only available on ios at the moment

[https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/ja/en/status](https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/ja/en/status)

hideki Japanese beta course available on iOS! 15 hours ago We are thrilled to
announce that our Japanese course is now available on iOS. It's coming to
Android in a few weeks, and web will be next! Find more details at

[https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22676285](https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22676285)
[http://making.duolingo.com/how-we-invented-a-new-way-to-
teac...](http://making.duolingo.com/how-we-invented-a-new-way-to-teach-one-of-
the-most-difficult-languages-to-learn)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6bxr2v/i_am_luis_von_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6bxr2v/i_am_luis_von_ahn_coinventor_of_captcha_recaptcha/)
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2017/05/18/japanes...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurenorsini/2017/05/18/japanese-
finally-comes-to-duolingo/)

~~~
anomie31
Any simple reason why it's delayed for Android? Do the devs prefer the ios
development environment? Do they have more iphones to test on? Are iphone
users prioritized because they have a higher median income?

~~~
nudpiedo
They always release for a subset of the users by making it available at only
one platform. Other languages were only available at the web interface first

------
_hao
From a pragmatic point of view Chinese would be much more useful, but there
are a tons of good resources for that already, so dunno. Congratulations
anyway. I've used Duolingo to refresh my German some time back.

~~~
baby
I still wish Duolingo would make a course on Chinese :(

Currently my favorite app is "Decipher Chinese". I read one story a day, save
words I want to remember and get quizzed on them periodically.

~~~
wolfgke
> I still wish Duolingo would make a course on Chinese :(

What kind of Chinese? Mandarin?

Linguistically Chinese is not a language, but a family of languages that is
united by a (mostly) common writing system. The reason that these Chinese
languages are called "dialects" is mostly political.

A language geek I know, who taught himself various Chinese dialects and in
particular Cantonese up to a very high level told me that Mandarin, though
referred to as the "official" Chinese language that is used in TV, it is in
his opinion rather an artificial language (he compared it with Esperanto).

So when learning some of the Chinese languages he recommended that at least
after some time learning the ropes (writing system, tones, common words), one
should really consider for what purpose one is learning Chinese and learn the
appropriate language of the respective province (he was really into
electronics, so he continued his study in particular into Cantonese).

~~~
sswezey
Honestly, when people say they want to learn Chinese, they usually mean
Mandarin Chinese. If they don't, they'll probably refer to the specific
dialect they'd like to learn. Also, without any Chinese exposure, learning
anything other than Mandarin is harder since their are so fewer resources.

Calling Mandarin an artificial language is bogus, it is the native dialect
around the Beijing area, and that is the reason it became the official dialect
of Chinese. There are many people in China who only speak Mandarin.

~~~
accountyaccount
Being the 'official' language, is this also true for Chinese business — or is
that dependent on the dialect of where an office may be located?

~~~
baby
I think by law they must speak in Mandarin. Check the law here and grep for
"putonghua"
[http://www.gov.cn/english/laws/2005-09/19/content_64906.htm](http://www.gov.cn/english/laws/2005-09/19/content_64906.htm)

If you travel in regions where Mandarin is not as predominant as it usually
is, you will often see signs telling you "please speak in mandarin".

The only exception really is Hong Kong.

~~~
accountyaccount
Interesting. So it seems like if someone wanted to do business with, or work
in, China (not HK) — learning Mandarin would definitely be the most useful?

~~~
zhengyi13
Generally, yes. There's still places liked Shanghai where there's a very
strong local language culture, but Mandarin should always suffice.

I've travelled in parts of China (Xishuangbanna in particular comes to mind,
in southernmost Yunnan) where they have truckloads of non-Han minorities, and
Mandarin was the lingua franca, and got me around, but I frequently spoke it
better than anyone around me on the street.

OTOH, if you travel out to say, Xinjiang, I'm told you might be better off
speaking Russian - the people out there are _not_ Han, and really don't want
to be part of China. Speaking the language of the empire out in the colonies
might not make you many friends :)

------
superasn
I don't know of a more useful app than Duolingo till date and This is just
another feather in the cap.

The only thing i don't understand about it is how it makes money? Yes, i read
somewhere that they use it to translate news sites and documents but I've been
playing it for almost 300 days now (uninterrupted streak) and still my French
proficiency is nowhere near to make a worthwhile translation like any
professional. This one really boggles my mind because it looks like they have
a huge team and invest a lot of time and resources and so must have a lot of
expenses.

~~~
dyukqu
There were optional in-app purchases and they have introduced Duolingo Plus
recently - which enables users to download lessons for offline learning &
removes ads. It's Android only for now and the price is $10 month. [0]

[0] [https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22202238/Introducing-
Duolin...](https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22202238/Introducing-Duolingo-
Plus)

------
fersho311
I started a project to be able to conjugate as many languages as I could and
I'd love to accept Japanese if anybody is up for the challenge:
[https://github.com/llipio/conjugator](https://github.com/llipio/conjugator)

So far, I've managed to understand enough korean, spanish, and french grammar
to review merge requests. Its interesting reading stories of how HN community
picked up Japanese, some of the suggestions are pretty helpful.

------
hahamrfunnyguy
I studied basic Japanese at school. I've been waiting for this to refresh my
skills. I didn't think the speaking and listening part of learning the
language was that hard.

Hiragana and Katakana are pretty simple and straight-forward. As for Kanji, I
haven't studied the Kanji to deeply, but to me it comes down to pattern
recognition and memorization.

My wife is Thai, and I've been trying to learn the language on and off for a
few years now. For me it's the complete opposite of Japanese difficulty-wise.
The reading and writing part is straight forward once you learn the alphabet
and the special rules. The part I have trouble with most is the speaking part
since there are multiple pitches and using them correctly is important. For
instance "khao khao" is white rice, "now" can mean either means either cold or
disgusting. Luckily, if you don't speak or hear the pitch correctly, most of
the time you can get by using context.

~~~
kanwisher
Thai is a really hard language to listen to in my mind, I've been learning for
3 years. Japanese I could start hearing words nearly immediately. Thai has far
more sounds + tones.

------
GolDDranks
As the they say in the article, Japanese is classified among the most
difficult languages for English speakers by Foreign Service Institute and this
is widely cited as a fact. But interestingly, no research data on this was
ever published. (The institute presented the facts as based on their internal
research, but no methods, results or anything was ever published. Nowadays the
original page has disappeared from the internet.)

Bill VanPatten, a linguist that specialises on second/foreign language
acquisition lamented this on his podcast, Tea With BVP. According to him,
there isn't any published research that shows that one language as a whole
would be more difficult as another one for speakers of some other language.
(He is not speaking about writing systems but about spoken language there –
Japanese has obviously very complicated writing system.)

~~~
e15ctr0n
> Japanese is classified among the most difficult languages for English
> speakers by Foreign Service Institute

I briefly took Japanese lessons from someone who teaches full time at the
Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA. She
confirmed Japanese language's status as "most difficult for English speakers".
She also said that DLI groups foreign languages into 4 levels based on how
difficult they are to learn for English speakers:

Level 1 (Easiest): Spanish

Level 2: German

Level 3: Russian, Hebrew

Level 4: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic

A more comprehensive listing is here:
[http://aboutworldlanguages.com/language-
difficulty](http://aboutworldlanguages.com/language-difficulty)

A hidden gem of a resource that I uncovered at that time: audio + textbook
lessons produced by NHK World Radio Japan as part of their 50th anniversary
celebrations. These lessons are in 17 languages, so they help those who are
not native speakers of English too.
[http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/](http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/)

------
thomastjeffery
I've been learning some simple Korean, and the biggest stumbling block is
romanization. 한글 is so simple to learn that there is no reason to romanize it.
To make matters worse, Korean vowels are very specific, and quite different
from English vowels. My instinct is to find Korean children's books, and learn
to read like a Korean. Either way, romanization is _harmful_.

Japanese does not have the same problem _per se_. Romanization of Japanese is
quite effective. All you need to understand are a="ah", e="eh", u="ooh",
o="oh" and i="eeh". That being said, it is still _very_ important to learn
kana; else, what would you _read_?

------
scelerat
Huh, I've just started learning Japanese after spending several weeks there
and looking forward to visiting many more times, and I would never
characterize it as especially difficult. There are some challenges, but
nothing mind-blowing.

The kana and kanji may seem intimidating, but identifying fragments and
context through repetition has been more rewarding and entertaining than
frustrating.

I understand there are many subtleties, but after having hung around some
native speakers for a while and hearing the patterns and starting to pick up
on pronunciation, rhythmic patterns and key words, conversation topics start
to become intelligible and communication possible.

~~~
krrrh
I also found it fun to learn a few basics on a recent month-long trip, but the
US State Department has rankings of language difficulty based on hours of
instructions required for foreign service employees, amd puts Japanese in the
most difficult category, with a note that it is the most difficult within that
category[1]. Mastering it to a diplomatic level seems incredibly time
consuming for native English speakers.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_...](https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers)

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seren
I am still waiting for Mandarin, IIRC it was announced a few years go but
still not available last time I checked. If they release Japanese now there
might some glimmer of hope.

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Tepix
When I was learning to read and write Japanese, I used the iOS app "Learn
Japanese with Tako" by Grogshot games. They use gamification to make it fun.
Very cute, check it out! (I'm not affiliated with them)

To improve your vocabulary while on the go (hands free) I heartily recommand
the "Nemo" apps by Nemo Apps (e.g. "Nemo japanese"). They're available for
both iOS and Android and for many languages. You can usually train the first
200 words for free.

~~~
shawnps
I'm a fan of the "Japanese" app on iOS for studying vocabulary - they have
lists for each JLPT level. It's a great dictionary as well.

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kazinator
I made a Windows application for drilling oneself in kanji meanings and
readings.

[http://www.kylheku.com/tankan/](http://www.kylheku.com/tankan/)

It is browser-based. It runs a tiny webserver, controlled by an icon in the
system notification area.

If you go through the license workflow, you get full use of the program for a
limited period. Put in "hackernews" into the promo code field and I might
provide a generous extension.

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FrankBlack
I enjoyed the series produced by public television called "Irasshai". The
lessons are available on the Georgia Public Broadcasting site and texts can be
purchased from Amazon. For those who have fond memories of "French In Action",
this will give you a similar vibe even though it isn't quite the same thing.

[http://www.gpb.org/irasshai](http://www.gpb.org/irasshai)

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franciscop
Shameless plug: I made a small webapp to memorize Japanese vocabulary through
spaced repetition and a Tinder-like interface:
[https://core.cards/](https://core.cards/)

I made it for myself, but someone else might find it useful. It is the
alternative of carrying a huge stack of cards as I used to do. Requires Github
login though to syncronize through devices.

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phr4ts
Check out Michele Thomas or Paul Noble Audio language learning - absolutely no
reading or workbook required.

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talkingtab
I highly recommend trying a Duolingo language, especially if there is a
country you want to visit. If you set your daily goal for 10 points (maybe 5 -
10 minutes) and build a 10 day streak there is a pretty good chance you will
be hooked on it. (Dutch level 16, French level 7).

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theyarehere
A1 and 88 kanji. That's sad. I hope there are plans to develop it further to
cover at least A2-B1.

~~~
andy_ppp
So they should have waited until they had more Kanji before releasing it?

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max23_
Finally.

I am really looking forward to learn Japanese with Duolingo ever since I came
across the site.

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it_learnses
I'm in Canada using Android. I don't see Japanese option yet. My app is up-to-
date it seems.

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lechiffre10
Been waiting for this one for a long time

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wst_
How can you measure which language is most difficult to learn? It is not an
universal fact. It depends on many factors. Title is click bait obviously.

~~~
accountyaccount
I've actually heard that Polish is more difficult to learn. It all seems
fairly subjective.

~~~
kmicklas
I'm not sure how Polish could be considered that hard for English speakers.
The writing system is completely phonetic, there are a ton of cognates (more
so than other Slavic languages I think because of its proximity to Western
Europe), and the ways of phrasing things are definitely more similar than your
average non-Indo-European language. OTOH, I've heard the other Slavic
languages have simpler grammar with fewer exceptions.

