Learn Japanese with free online lessons
Japanese is practically Japan’s primary language, and nearly all of the country’s 128 million inhabitants speak it. There is little information available about the language’s prehistory or when it first arose in Japan. A few Japanese words were documented in Chinese writings dating back to the third century, but significant texts did not appear until the eighth century. It belongs to the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, although its relationship to other languages, such as Korean, is debatable. Japonic languages have been classified as part of various language families such as Ainu, Austroasiatic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these classifications has achieved general support. Japanese is a mora-timed agglutinative language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and lexically important pitch-accent. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) had changes in characteristics that made it closer to contemporary Japanese, as well as the first appearance of European loanwords. English loanwords, in particular, have multiplied, as have Japanese words with English roots. During the Heian period (794–1185), the Chinese had a significant impact on the Old Japanese lexicon and pronunciation.
I have compiled a list of a few good free online learning resources for you. Let's see them.
Alison
Alison the world-famous online education provider offers a Diploma in the Japanese Language in a duration of 10-15 Hours that has an accreditation to CPD. With over 64,918 enrolled in the course, this diploma will introduce you to the basics of the Japanese language and teach you about the fundamental aspects of the Japanese language.
Duolingo
The world’s most popular way to learn Japanese online is to learn Japanese in just 5 minutes a day with game-like lessons, irrespective of whether you are a beginner starting with the basics or looking to practise your reading, writing and speaking. Duolingo is scientifically proven to work, with bite-sized Japanese lessons that are effective and 100% free! Duolingo lessons adapt to your learning style, with exercises that are tailored to help you learn and review vocabulary effectively. These interactive exercises provide not only provide you instant feedback to help you improve your Japanese skills on the spot, but you can also earn virtual coins to unlock new levels and watch your fluency score rise as you master new words, phrases and grammar. A study has shown that 34 hours of Duolingo or equal to 1 university semester of language courses learning a language. Duolingo is completely free, however, one can pay to remove ads and support free education with Plus. The first 14 days of the course being completely free. You could also download Duolingo for an iPhone or Android apps and make your breaks and commute more productive.
Udemy
Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace with over 155000 courses and 40 million students. Learn programming, marketing, data science and more. It offers numerous free Japanese online courses. Courses are usually offered by top industry instructors across the world and learners can utilize the benefit of learning at their own pace, with lifetime access on mobile and desktop!
JapanesePod101
Japanesepod101 is easy to use and excellent if you’re a visual or auditory learner, as it includes plenty of videos and audio clips. It offers courses that are suitable for all levels, and if you are studying for the JLPT, it will hook you up with more resources for that, as well, such as vocabulary flashcards and a word bank to really personalize your learning experience and help you focus on words you struggle with. You can use JapanesePod101 to shape your own course and work out which is the best way for you to learn.
Japanesepod101 offers free lessons and then there are those that can be taken in a paid plan such as basic, premium and premium+. These plans offer access to different numbers of videos and lessons depending on the plan taken. I suggest you
Start off with a free account, and upgrade if you enjoy the experience. Although you can continue using your free “trial” as long as you’d like, you’ll need to subscribe to one of their paid plans to unlock the full potential and all the features of the program.
Multibhashi
Multibhashi is a Technology platform that imparts impactful content designed by its empanelled Linguist experts across major Indian languages imparted via Cloud LMS, Cloud telephony, Streaming Video, Realtime Chat, Experiential Learning, Gamification & Interactive evaluation leading to Adaptive Learning by the user. In November 2020, HolonIQ – an authority when it comes to performing and buddying EdTechs, announced its first annual India and South Asia EdTech 100 — a list of the 100 most promising education technology startups across the region from approximately 3000 EdTech teams based in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. And Multibhashi bagged a position in the top 100 Edtech companies in Asia and ONLY ONE FROM INDIA in the Language learning category to be part of HOLONIQ. Multibhashi offers pocket-friendly courses via customized online learning, that’s flexible and allows you to take classes at the convenience of your home, with qualified trainers that are certified Level B2 and above, with diverse experience, having helped thousands of learners who help you improve in the subject by consistently monitoring your progress through pre-assessment, mid-assessment and post-assessment. You can use their app for free learning and if you find it interesting you can always upgrade yourself to their paid one-on-one or group classes.
Finally,
While there are various dialects and accents in Japan, experts believe that the country’s mostly monolingual status is exceptional. Most countries have a large number of main languages that are widely spoken inside their borders. According to a Japan Foundation poll conducted in 2006, 2.98 million persons in 133 countries are studying the language at 13,639 institutions outside of Japan. This statistic, which is up 26.4 per cent from the last poll in 2003, does not include self-education or private courses. According to Ken Machida, a linguistics professor at Nagoya University, there are between 6,000 and 7,000 living languages in the globe now, which amounts to about 30 per area if evenly distributed.
There’s an amazing new way to learn Japanese! Want to see what everyone’s talking about! Click Here.