You may be interested in reading some of the comments that we have received about these lessons. Please feel free to add your own remarks by using the box at the bottom of the page.
Please note that there are additional comments at the bottom of the How to Read Japanese page.
Dear Roger – I very much appreciate that care and time that you have taken to create this valuable Japanese course. The combination of the sound flash cards and the written transcript is invaluable, but I wonder if I could ask you one thing? Once you begin to get the hang of the Japanese, the English explanation begins to become redundant, and I wonder if you have a version of these lessons which contain only the Japanese voice. The English voice material is invaluable at the start, but it would be helpful to by pass it as experience of listening the Japanese is gained.
Thanks and best wishes.
Hi Barrie,
I’m happy to hear that the course is helpful. Unfortunately, no, I don’t have a Japanese-only version. I’m very surprised that you would even suggest such a thing. I continue to listen to the lessons every day and sometimes still struggle with the translations from English to Japanese, even after many repetitions. I continue to learn from them.
Perhaps what you are suggesting is that you need help with kikitori, or listen/taking. At one point several years ago, I became concerned that these lessons were emphasizing translation skills at the expense of listening skills. I briefly experimented with the idea of reversing the English and Japanese phrases, so that the Japanese phrases appeared first, followed by English translations. It was very time-consuming to make these changes to one of the audio files, and I didn’t feel in the end that it was worth the trouble.
I decided that a good way for me to work on kikitori is to watch Japanese films with subtitles, as I mention on the “How to Use” page on this site.
Of course, having nearly exhausted these lessons myself, I’m looking ahead and asking myself how to proceed further in my Japanese studies. You may be familiar with the Japanese Pod 101 site. 2 years ago, I signed up for one of their top-level memberships (it cost about $200, but they have special discount offers from time to time, and sometimes you can get one for about $100) and was careful to cancel the subscription before the one-year deadline, since otherwise they renew it automatically. During that year, I downloaded virtually all of their dialogues and transcripts. Now I’m in the process of going through the transcripts, identifying all of the vocabulary words that I don’t know, placing those words plus my own mnemonics on electronic flashcards, and learning them. After doing this, I find that I’m able to listen to the dialogues and benefit from them. However, since the Japanese Pod 101 dialogues are often very difficult, I would not recommend them to anyone who hasn’t already mastered the material on this site.
Good luck with your studies!
Hi! Thanks so much for your generosity, I really appreciate it. I feel lucky to have found this website, I’ve been studying Japanese since I was 12 (I’m now 18) and I am in 7-8 Honors Japanese.
Thanks again! This has helped me a lot and I’ll continue to use it, I love Japanese.
Hi Ana,
I’m so glad to hear that the site is helping you. I love Japanese too.
Hi Roger, your work, as I scanned the transcripts before reading and learning it, I find it really good. Thank you for providing the lessons, I will hope to learn and understand a lot, although this will be my first time to learn Japanese by using the lessons. all the information I am gathering to learn Japanese are all from the net and no book is used as a resource coz can’t afford to buy one right now, I’m out of school youth and had been wondering for months of what to do and then decided to learn Japanese on my own will. I will keep in touch with your lessons here and in your facebook page. more power to you and your wife as you continue to do works like this, this is a great opportunity and chance for me to learn Japanese though I know its tough to learn.
– Philippines
Hi James,
Thank you very much for your message. My wife and I want the lessons to be free so that people who don’t have a lot of money will be able to use them too. As you say, Japanese is difficult, but I don’t think you will regret trying to learn it. I wish I had been able to find lessons like these many years ago, when I first started visiting Japan. Since you’re still young and are getting off to an early start, I think you will eventually be able to progress much further than I have.
Hi Roger, I just listened to your first lesson and I can see your passion for japanese culture. I admit that this first lesson was a bit easy ’cause I’ve already studied something on my own but I think your lessons will help me a lot. From now on you and your wife are my 先生. You really did a good work. ありがとうございます.
Sergio, Italy
Thank you so much for your encouragement, Sergio. It’s great to hear from you. Good luck with your Japanese study!
Thank you so much for these lessons. I really, really appreciate the help! Jim
PS I think Lesson 22 is damaged as it cannot be opened.
Hi Jim,
Thank you for telling me about Lesson 22. It must have gotten corrupted when I converted it from a .wav file to an .mp3 file. I just re-converted the .wav file and uploaded it again as an .mp3 zip file. It seems to be working fine now.
I’m happy to hear that the lessons are useful.
Please stay in touch.