Hey guys!
So even though we’ve made videos about how to learn Japanese before, people still ask
us pretty much daily where and how they can learn Japanese.
Well, we recently came across a new website that pretty much combines all of our favorite
resources, so this is now our new favorite website and we really want to share it with
you.
And actually they just contacted us and asked if we'd be willing to work together so we
said freaking of course yes!
So if you are interested then at the end of this video I have a deal for you from them.
The website is called italki.
It focuses primarily on individual people providing personal language lessons online.
But before I get into that part I want to talk about all the other stuff this website
has, which is why it’s my favorite website now.
So if you go to the Community tab at the end, it lets you connect with people all around
the world who either speak the language you’re learning, or they're trying to learn it with
you.
So for language partners, we can click find a Japanese, native speaker, and then it gives
you a list of Japanese people that you can message and then become language partners
with.
It shows you the languages they’re learning, so you can see there are a lot of people who
speak fluent Japanese who want to learn all sorts of languages, not just English.
Usually what happens with a language partner is you just chat with them, sometimes through
skype, and you can help each other practice your language and they can help correct you
and give you advice and vice versa.
There’s also notebook, where you can practice your writing skills by writing a blog in the
language you’re trying to learn, and then people can correct it for you.
There’s answers, where you can ask language questions and other people on the website
can help answer them and help you understand the point you're having problems with.
And then there’s discussions, where you can have group conversations.
And so this community tab alone, provides literally all of the best resources I’ve
been giving you guys in the past, all in one website.
And it's free, so this is fantastic.
So for the primary part of the website.
If you can’t take Japanese language classes where you are, you can take lessons online
through a native speaker.
At some point in your studies it’s kind of necessary, because a native speaker can
teach you how people actually speak, as opposed to just learning from textbooks, which teach
you the textbook language, which isn't exactly how people talk all the time.
And sometimes they teach you weird grammar points that people don’t even really use.
So talking to someone who knows the language is really valuable.
On italki you can take lessons from professional or informal teachers.
So if you go to the professional lessons tab, you can find professional language teachers.
It shows you how good they are in their languages, how much they charge for a lesson, how many
lessons they’ve taught, and how people have rated their lessons.
And if you click on them, it shows you what lessons they offer and what textbooks they
might use.
Many of them offer video introductions so you can see what they’re like, and if you
want to take one of their classes, you can click on their time schedule to schedule a
lesson.
There’s informal tutoring, where they’re not accredited teachers but they can still
give you language practice.
Since you’re paying them for tutoring, the whole time you’re speaking you would be
practicing the language YOU want to learn, as opposed to when you get a language partner
where you have to take turns practicing each other’s languages.
And then there’s instant tutoring where you don’t even have to schedule a lesson
in advance—you can just get immediate tutoring from someone.
They offer a lot of languages, so this website works for pretty much everyone, including
our Japanese viewers who want to learn English.
And you know, if you are a language teacher, too, you can also teach on this website.
And like I was saying before about us working together—they set up a promotion page for
our viewers, the link is down in the description below, where if you sign up with them and
then buy one language lesson, you get your second language lesson free.
So if you wanted to do that, there you go!
So this website really puts together all the best parts of human interaction for learning
a language.
You’ll still need to study things on your own like vocabulary and kanji and things like
that, but I think this is an incredibly valuable resource, so if you're studying a language
then I definitely recommend checking it out.
And I will talk to you guys again later!
Thanks for watching!
Bye~