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Online Japanese Courses

Online Japanese courses designed for teens and young adults

Study Japanese with Purpose

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Choose Your Path

Sakai Press
L1_U2_K6D

Self-Paced
Online Japanese Courses

マイペースの日本語コース

Best of both worlds! 

Study on your own schedule & be able to ask a teacher questions in live sessions or messages.

Sakai Press
U0 K1 teacher

Teacher-led
Online Japanese Courses

先生付きの日本語コース

Study with a teacher on a schedule! 

Immerse yourself in the language. Quick-paced course taught by the authors.

Sakai Press
Online Japanese Courses

Independent Study
Online Japanese Courses

自習用の日本語コース

Study completely independently!

Access to all of the materials but without the teacher support from us.  

Testimonials

Meet the Authors

Sakai Press

Ms. Molly Adkins

MOLLY

Molly Adkins taught Japanese in public high schools from 2002 – 2022 in USA. Before that, she resided in Japan for eleven years where she received her MA at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts. She holds Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JPLT) Level 1 [fluent] Certification. While also a specialist of Japanese folk song, she has presented extensively at various conferences about instructional strategies and Japanese pedagogy. She has been honored as Teacher of the Year by the Indiana Foreign Language Teacher Association, Association of Indiana Teachers of Japanese, and Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. She served as the president of the Association of Indiana Teachers of Japanese from 2007 to 2009. Molly is an instructor and practitioner of sound healing, an intuitive life coach, certified yoga instructor, and reiki master practitioner. She runs her business Sacred Sound Healing in Colorado Springs, CO. In her free time, Molly likes to hike in the mountains and do vocal toning with her cats.

Sakai Press

Dr. Keiko Kuriyama

Dr. Keiko Kuriyama

Keiko Kuriyama is currently an Associate Clinical Professor and the Director of the Japanese Studies program at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, USA. She has presented and published widely on Japanese pedagogy and received several teaching awards including the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers Award, the Indiana Japanese Teacher of the Year Award and the Indiana Foreign Language Teacher of the Year Award.  Keiko served as the president of the Association of Indiana Teachers of Japanese from 2013 to 2015. She received her PhD in Linguistics at the State University of New York, Buffalo. In her free time, Keiko likes to cook her favorite Thai food and do yoga.

Japanese Language FAQs

  1. As of 2021, Japanese has the 3rd largest economy in the world.
  2. Knowing Japanese can bring more business opportunites. Products such as automobiles, electronics, clothing, etc. continue to rise in popularity around the world.
  3. Japanese pop culture continues to explode around the world. Whether it is anime, manga, sushi-making, ikebana, etc., knowing Japanese gives you direct access to the culture and traditions.
  4.  Japanese will set you apart from others. Having a less commonly learned language on your resume will make you stand out from the crowd. 
  5. Japanese is a great gateway to other East Asian languages. The sentence structure and honorific speech is similar to Korean; the writing system is taken from the ideographs used in Chinese. 

The difficulty of learning a second language depends on your fluency in other languages. For Korean speakers, Japanese will be easier to grasp because sentence structures and vocabulary pronunication is similar. For English speakers, however, Japanese is more challenging because it is one of the most removed languages in grammar and vocabulary. In addition, the writing system is completely different. But, if you try think about it as just taking more time to learn rather than being difficult, you may find more satisifaction in your study progress.

There are, however, parts of Japanese that are simpler than English. For example, Japanese nouns have no plural forms or genders. There are only two tenses: non-past and past. There are only two irregular verbs in the entire language. Japanese is easy to pronounce with its five pure vowels that have consistent pronunciation.

The short answer for native English speakers is that Japanese is difficult, but there are parts that you may find much easier to learn that other European languages. In the end, your success will depend on your goals, motivation and mindset.

Not at all! As long as you are following the stroke order and watching the balance of the characters, your written characters will be easy to read. Learning Japanese characters will actually teach you to have an eye for detail. Just remember you learned the difference of similar English letters, such as b, d and p, as a youngster. Based on this, you should be able to learn the differences of Japanese characters as well. 

No experience necessary. You need interest in Japanese language and culture, motivation to keep studying and time to study. 

You will need: 

  • computer (preferable), tablet or smart phone
  • web camera & microphone for online classes
  • printer (not required, but preferable)
  • a way to scan or photograph and upload assignments (most students use a smart phone) 

Yes! The courses can be used across all platforms: computers, tablets, and smart phones. To get the best experience, it is recommended that a desktop or laptop computer is used. 

The full courses are accessible for one year from the date of purchase. The summer intensive courses are accessible for 90 days from the beginning of the course. 

Yes! Any student who has completed the summer or self-paced course with 75% or higher will receive a Certification of Completion via email.

No. We are not an accredited online school. However, by taking our amazing Japanese language and culture courses, a student could use these courses to study and review for a placement test at secondary schools or universities. In addition, since these courses are based on the Advanced Placement test themes, they would be a concrete foundation for moving toward higher level AP studying. One level of Quest for Japanese Fluency is the approximately one year of a high school course or one semester of a university course. 

Meet the Course Characters

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