Hey guys. I recently graduated from college in May and have been studying Japanese by myself. I took 3 semesters in college and would say my Japanese level is a little above beginner. I was wondering if you knew of any place that I could get some formal Japanese lessons online. I searched youtube but most all of the videos were below the level that I needed. Do you know any website that has something like a teacher writing sentences, teaching grammar/vocab, and has mock exams that you can take?


Thanks for the help.

I've looked into classes because I thought it would be the best way for me to learn. In the end, I found they were all far too expensive, and the only free stuff wasn't in the format you're asking.

Instead, I've tried a lot of sites, free or not, and I keep coming back to iknow.jp and using it. I'm not saying it couldn't be improved... But I haven't found a site that's better, yet. And I've tried.

Honestly I've been looking for the same thing and the closest thing's I've found is Japanesepod101.com

You can sign up for a free and get a month for free as a premium member so you can get to all their old videos and stuff, I did that and downloaded everything they had.

I'll start working through it later, but I have to say that they cover an unbelievable amount of situations you can find yourself in and how to talk your way through them. I honestly think they cover about 90+ % of the stuff people need everyday. There is some writing but it is not like in a class.

But honestly if you can do it yourself between that and a few text books like Genki and RTK you should be fine.

I used to take lessons from a place called Japanese online institute, I just checked and it still seems to be around at http://www.japonin.com

The prices are not bad and you get a live lesson through some conferencing software for about 10 dollars for 50 minutes. To be honest, my Japanese got way better AFTER I quit taking lessons there, but that also coincided with Rtk and my foray into reading as much real Japanese as possible. However, the foundation of grammar plus speaking practice I.got from there might have still contributed quite a bit.

I would check it out, but again it's going to be your personal motivation that ultimately decides how much you can achieve. Good luck!

Personally I think any class by definition will be relatively ineffective compared with focused self-study.

Save your money and buy some manga or movies or whatever you're into, in japanese.

(schools in japan are probably an exception... if you can go to school over there for a year, by all means do it)

There is a $1 coupon on retailmenot.com for a month of Japanesepod101.com. I used that, downloaded everything it had and then canceled the recurring fee on my PayPal. Probably the best dollar I've ever spent. I don't like listening to the lessons though. I just use the PDFs that have the dialogue and grammar notes along with the dialogue audio.

Thanks a lot guys. I was just having trouble staying focused on studying Kore 6000. I have already finished RTK1 and was going through that and went through a bit of Tae Kim and most all of UBJG. Kore is great but it was getting tiring and not fun and so I gradually stopped doing it. I gotta get back into it and work on my skills so I'm trying to find something that will hold my attention and help me stay focused.

I like some of the features they've incorporated into this site:

https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/lesson01/advanced/index.html

Each lesson is broken up into a basic and advanced level. The basic is very easy, the advanced isn't too difficult but goes about normal speaking speed. Their quizzes and such aren't too hard and have a decent variety, and I like the way they have the scripts set up so that you can scroll over the words you don't know rather than just printing the furigana with them, as I tend to read the furigana even when I'm trying to focus on the kanji. It might be a little on the easy side for where you described your level at, but I wish I'd stumbled across it much earlier in my studies.

spleenlol Wrote:Thanks a lot guys. I was just having trouble staying focused on studying Kore 6000. I have already finished RTK1 and was going through that and went through a bit of Tae Kim and most all of UBJG. Kore is great but it was getting tiring and not fun and so I gradually stopped doing it. I gotta get back into it and work on my skills so I'm trying to find something that will hold my attention and help me stay focused.

i would start incorporating real japanese™ into your studies.
the problem with grinding out vocabulary and grammar like that is that you don't really feel like you're learning if you aren't using it. when you start seeing it or using it, you see the benefits of your studying and you're more encouraged to go back to focused study.

imo getting a teacher doesn't change the motivation problem, it just deflects it on to someone else.

i would only go to a teacher if there's a concept that you're completely not understanding and constantly make mistakes on and if self-studying isn't fixing it.