Ken Cannon here,
OK so people are always asking me about the best/fastest ways to learn Japanese.
OK so people are always asking me about the best/fastest ways to learn Japanese.
So I decided I’d do some reviews for some of the more popular ones.
First off, as the title says is of course www.japanesepod101.com
This site has gotten quite popular recently.Now at first I really didn’t like this site, and this sounds a bit mean, but honestly I thought they’re spokes person was really annoying. You know, the one all over youtube, that Japanese girl?
But then one day I decided to stop being a complete ass, and try them out. So I did, last week actually. And cool thing was, I actually liked they’re site! They have literately hundreds of different lessons to learn from! Something I thought was amazing! And the podcast’s themselves are very professionally produced. It’s sort of like a morning talk show type thing.
However! I found it very faced paced, and most of the time they give good explanations on how to words are used, but make really no attempt to help the listener to actually remember the phrases! A lot of the time I found them simply listing the vocabulary words.
Another downfall to this site is there is very little direction on how to go about learning, It is was cool for me because I already speak the language but for somebody just starting out it would be a bit random.
Another downfall to this site is there is very little direction on how to go about learning, It is was cool for me because I already speak the language but for somebody just starting out it would be a bit random.
On top of that, they seem really cheap, with the whole free lifetime membership thing, But the supposedly free, lifetime membership really has a very very limited amount of content on it. And is just a sales gimmick to get you to upgrade.
So with they’re most basic upgrade, 4 dollars a month, which seems quiet cheap. Its comes to about 50 bucks a year. Now as most people take 4 years to learn a language, especially with Japanesepod101’s haphazard lesson format. You’ll end up spending about 200 bucks. Which of course isn’t so cheap.
All in all I’d say this site is great as a supplemental resource, something you can use to keep your Japanese up to speed when you’re doing something else. (for example I listen to it while jogging, and driving)
But to really learn the language from the ground up, in the quickest amount of time, there are other options out there.
Overall 5/10
Well thats my review, I'd really like to know what you think. If you have or have used Japanesepod101 I'd be really grateful if you could go ahead and put your input below. Rate on a scale from 1 to 10 and hopefully we can get a bit of a discussion going on here.
Ken Cannon
Overall 5/10
Well thats my review, I'd really like to know what you think. If you have or have used Japanesepod101 I'd be really grateful if you could go ahead and put your input below. Rate on a scale from 1 to 10 and hopefully we can get a bit of a discussion going on here.
Ken Cannon
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