Human Japanese Intro + Intermediate Combo Pack

はじめまして. So, you want to learn Japanese. Looking at this item, you are probably doing what I did... gee, Rosetta Stone is so well known, but it's $200, and then there is this program by some software company I've never heard of, for only ~$40. They can't even be close to being the same in terms of quality... You are right. The one for $40 is better. So, I have tried Rosetta Stone for several languages. And if you like to walk haphazardly into a language and stumble about until you figure it out on your own, because that's really what Rosetta Stone is all about, then you can stop reading here. Congrats! You are showing some signs of thought! This program will definitely aid you on your way as it has me. I've been studying Japanese for about 10 months now. I've bought half a dozen intro books, and this program. I started with Kana From Zero to learn the character sets, and then went to this program. You can absolutely start with this program as it introduces you to all the characters, but I wanted a little head start. I have to say, this program, especially when considering the financial factor of it, is the best money you can spend for learning Japanese. I have finished only the intro disc so far, and that netted me about 800 vocabulary words and taught me basic sentence structure. But its done such a wonderful job at it, that I can actually go to my native Japanese friends and be like, "hey is this right?" as I try to make leaps and bounds on my own. Is the Intro disc going to make you fluent and able to get around Japan on your own. No. Definitely not, but it will give you a great foundation to continue your studies as it has mine. For me, after I finished the Intro disc, I enrolled in a Japanese beginner level course at a local college; which, I am happy to say, after 4 weeks in that course, they have taught me absolutely nothing that I didn't learn from this program. In fact, looking through the entire syllabus for the 17 week course, I probably will learn a dozen or so new vocabulary words and that's about it (although I am gaining valuable experience speaking and interacting with native Japanese speakers in the class--which you should find someone to practice with to!). So this is a great program to teach you the foundations of the language. I just installed the intermediate program, and its the same style of course, but with a heavy focus on getting into just more than the basics (e.g. Kanji). Personally, I'm pretty excited to work my way through this program over the next several months! So the program itself is pretty straight forward. The intro disc consisted of 45 lessons. These lessons are broken down into high level topics, such as weather, the home, verbs, adverbs, etc. They vary in length, but are typically around 10 slides worth of material. The lessons explain the topic very well and include new vocab and audio recordings so you can hear a native speaker use the new words/concepts. After every chapter, there is a short quiz to ensure you've mastered the lesson before moving on. You can unlock all the lessons at the beginning if you want, but I found that having to master the lesson before moving to the next one very useful as it made me really solidify my understanding of what was discussed--which, is important because each subsequent lesson will use what you learned in the previous lessons as well. I did reach out to their support people once for a problem I had with the program--I had to copy the program from a failing drive to a new drive, and wanted to preserve my progress. To my surprise they responded in less than a day, and helped me out. So, is there anything bad about this program? Not really. The one thing I think that would have made this program even better is if they had a workbook that went along with it. While the course material is great, having something physical to work on, whether its some reading comprehension or doing some written translations, would have been wonderful. The only other downside, is, they only have a beginner and intermediate program. So once you are done with both, you'll have to find something else to continue your studies. I am happy to say, however, that I found out they have some online material that is available for free, or via subscription, called Satori Reader. Its reading material for all levels that explain sentences and word usage just as well as this program does, so I encourage you to take a look at that once you finish the intro disc. Good luck in your studies! またね！

The free trial on their website actually allows you to read, and study though the first 10 CHAPTERS with progress saving FOR FREE! and once you decide to buy you can just enter your code, and pick up where you left off! That's way more then enough to get you started. This software is available on pc, ios, and android, so you can study anywhere (mobile versions sold separately) It is written very well, and feels more like a having a person explain the topic rater then the writing style of a text book. and they do a great job of explaining the little things. The only real downside is for learning katakana and hiragana, they don't really have a great way to help you memorize what you learned, sure you can go back and read the sections, but the only place you can see multiple sets of letters at once is in the 'memory matching game' where you'll spend half the time looking for the second part of a pair, and much less memorizing what you've learned. an easy fix to this, is just to use an online site like hiraganaquiz .com, that's more a 'flash card' style page, and makes memorizing much faster, but overall this is a great program for getting you started learning, I'm not done with it yet, but so far it's been well worth the money! If you're not sure about it, or what to know if it will work on computer or tablet or phone, just download the 'lite' version, they have links to all the free trails on their website!

program is exceptional. When I got this I was missing the intro CD; however, upon notifying them they offered to send me a brand new disc set and had excellent customer service. The truly do back their product and stand by it. the product is really in depth and helps you integrate into the language learning atmosphere and is very helpful in making sure that the user is prepared to be in japan and integrate into the society, rather then what other programs do (give you the tourist style lessons) very nice product, I recommend using that while taking a Japanese class for complete and in-depth understanding. Thank you for the great service and I hope you can go into the languages that serve the top economies of the world. -Mandarin .(China...its official language..even though Hakka, Wu, Mongolian, Cantonese and other dialects are still heavily used in many regions) -Spanish(Latin America) -Hindi (India) -Farsi (Arabic regions) ...if you do I will buy all of the porgrams

I am very picky about my foreign language tools because I studied second language acquisition. I hate anything that claims to teach you "like a child" or uses other bad science. I am still only in the beginner section, which I am using to brush up on the language since I am actually an intermediate speaker. However, I was a snotty 17 year old when I started learning Japanese so I wanted to iron out some things I had been winging it on. I think the explanations on this are great. I like the flow and the organization. I would say that this alone is NOT sufficient practice. You will still need flashcards and some external practice. However, this is a great replacement for what a class might usually accomplish. And the price is really quite good. I also like the tone of the narration. It doesn't treat you like an idiot.

Amazing product and price!

Great piece of software, currently I am still on the intro disk, however, it is packed full of examples, illustrations and audio. This makes it really easy for the user to understand. The teacher/ author informs you of all the mistakes that foreign people make when speaking Japanese to help you not to get into bad habits whilst learning. In this piece of software, Hirigana, Katakana and Kanji (The alphabets) are explained; from origin to their seperate uses in Japan. These are just a few things that make this product so great for beginners like me. I also recommend to users that they pair this software with the 'Kanji Quiz' app on IOS and Android as it helps you recognise the characters a lot faster.

I'm not even halfway through this yet but so far I totally love it. I find it very well paced and the most important bit for me is that it actually teaches how to read,write and speak rather than just how to memorise phrases and parrot back which I read some other packages do. I reviewed a large range of Japanese learning products prior to buying this and I definitely made the right choice for my learning style but it does require time investment (took me around 5 hours to learn the Hiragana sets).

great

Very good book