How to Use

Learning Japanese on Japanese From Day One is simple: follow each day's instructions carefully. The most crucial part of your learning will always be input: reading, listening, watching, and absorbing as much Japanese as you can, consistently.

The first lessons are being written now. This page explains how they work, so you're ready for Day 1.

First, Learn Hiragana and Katakana

Japanese is written with three sets of characters, often in the same sentence: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Learn hiragana and katakana before Day 1: each has 46 basic characters, one for each syllable, and a week or two of practice is enough to read them. A few things are worth knowing:

• Hiragana (ひらがな) writes the grammar of a sentence and many everyday words: the particles, the endings of verbs and adjectives, and words like これ (kore, "this").
• Katakana (カタカナ) writes words taken from other languages, so many look strange but sound familiar: コーヒー (kōhī, "coffee"), テレビ (terebi, "TV").
• Kanji (漢字) are characters that came from Chinese, each with a meaning: 山 ("mountain"), 駅 ("station"). Most have more than one reading, and nobody learns them all at once: you'll pick them up word by word, as the lessons use them.
• Each kana is one beat, and the beats are evenly timed. A long vowel lasts two beats (おばあさん, obāsan, "grandmother", but おばさん, obasan, "aunt"), and a small っ holds the next consonant for a beat (きって, kitte, "stamp"). Listening is the best way to hear the difference.
• Words aren't separated by spaces. Small words called particles, such as は, を and に, mark the parts of a sentence, and は and へ are read wa and e when they're particles.

Lessons will also be able to show each line in Latin letters (Romanization, for example arigatō for ありがとう). Use it to check how a line sounds, not to read instead of the Japanese: the sooner you read kana, the faster you'll go.

Why Input Matters Most

Traditional language learning tries to make you speak before you're ready, forcing you to memorize grammar rules or drill vocabulary out of context.

But when you're pushed to speak too early, you're often just guessing, making mistakes, and creating bad habits. Instead, our method emphasizes constant exposure to natural, understandable Japanese, similar to how children learn their first language.

Required Reading: Input - what it is and why you need it

Daily Lessons: How to Use Them

Each day's lesson comes with clear instructions: simply follow along step by step. If you've comfortably finished a day's content, it's perfectly fine to continue to the next lesson. But don't rush, and take breaks if you're tired. Enjoying the process is crucial; if you don't, burnout is inevitable.

Using a Lesson Page

Every lesson is one short conversation, in a few numbered steps. Press Play all to hear it from start to finish, or the round button next to a line to hear just that line. The line being played is highlighted, so your eyes can follow along. Each speaker has a voice of their own. The Options button next to Play all holds these settings, and the page remembers them for every lesson:

• Play each line once, twice or three times in a row.
• Speed slows the audio down to 0.8× or 0.6× without changing the voice.
• Hide the English leaves the translations blank so you can test yourself. Tap where a line's English was to peek at it.
• Word cards: point at any word of a Japanese line (or tap it) to see what it means.
• Listen only hides all the text, for pure listening.

On a computer, the keyboard works too: R plays or pauses the whole dialogue, 1 to 9 play a line, E hides or shows the English, and the ← → arrows go to the previous or next day.

When you've finished a lesson, press Done, on to the next day: it takes you to the next one and, with a free account, marks the day done, so the course page and the menu show where you left off. If you spot a mistake in a line, press Spotted a mistake? under the dialogue, choose the line and tell us what's wrong.

Saving Your Progress

You don't need an account to learn: every lesson is open to everyone. To keep track of your progress, create a free account with your email address. Every day you finish is then saved to your account, and the course page and the menu show where you left off. Log in on your phone, another computer or a new browser, and you pick up where you left off there too.

Without an account, nothing about your progress is kept. If you marked days done in this browser before progress moved to accounts, they're still here, waiting: create an account or log in on this browser and they go into it. Your account holds only your email address and the lessons you've marked done, and you can delete it any time from its page.

Polite and Casual Japanese Are Part of Every Lesson

Japanese changes with the person you're talking to. With strangers, customers, teachers and people you've just met, everyone uses the polite forms that end in です (desu) and ます (masu), such as 行きます (ikimasu, "I'll go"); with family and close friends, the plain forms, such as 行く (iku). Shops, offices and announcements add keigo (敬語), extra-respectful words for customers and bosses, such as いらっしゃいませ ("welcome", to someone walking into a shop). People call each other by their family name and さん (Tanaka-san), and keep first names, ちゃん and くん for friends and family. "You" is rarely said: people use the other person's name, or leave it out.

You don't need to study the rules. Each lesson's situation says who the speakers are and how they know each other, and across the course you meet every combination: women and men, students and teachers, parents and grandparents, bosses, customers and old friends. Notice how they speak to each other, and the right words will start to feel natural.

Maximizing Your Input

Your goal is simple: get as much input as possible. This doesn't mean just focused study; it means immersing yourself in Japanese as often as you can, even passively. Listen to Japanese podcasts, YouTube videos, anime, TV dramas or songs while you walk, exercise, cook, or commute. Much of what you'll hear is casual Tokyo speech, quicker than the textbook, with words run together and sentences left unfinished: that's normal, and the more you hear it, the more of it you'll follow.

AJATT famously emphasizes this: passive listening helps your brain get accustomed to Japanese sounds, making the language feel natural over time.

Enjoy the Process and Avoid Burnout

Learning a language should be enjoyable. If you're feeling exhausted, slow down. Remember, this isn't just about learning Japanese; it's about getting used to Japanese. Meeting Japanese every day, even passively, makes it part of your daily life. Eventually, it becomes natural, comfortable, and even part of your identity.

If you consistently engage with the language through input, you'll soon find yourself thinking in Japanese. When you've had enough exposure, the desire to speak will naturally emerge, and you won't need to force it. It'll come as naturally as breathing.

Don't Give Up: We're Always Here

Learning Japanese is a journey, not a race. If life gets in the way and you take a break, that's fine. We'll always be here. Simply come back whenever you're ready, pick up exactly where you left off, and keep going.

Trust the process, keep reading and listening, keep reviewing, and above all, enjoy yourself. Japanese will become a natural part of your life before you know it.