Learn Japanese, one short lesson at a time
240 free lessons in everyday Japanese as spoken in Tokyo, from your first konnichiwa to real conversations.
Each lesson is one page and takes about 15 minutes.
Every line comes as text and as audio, with furigana over the kanji and romaji underneath, so you can read it, hear it, practise it with quick exercises, and finish by saying it out loud.
The whole course follows Leo, who has moved to Tokyo for a year, his new neighbors in Yanaka, and a very polite yak named Goro. By the door of the corner kissaten stands an old black umbrella that nobody is allowed to borrow.
Meet the cast
LeoJust moved to Tokyo for a year and apt to say sumimasen for everything. In the lessons, you speak as him.
MasakoRuns Kissa Hotaru, remembers every order, and has never let anyone borrow the old black umbrella by the door.
GoroA very polite yak with a Suica card on a cord, who sits in the corner booth and never finishes his blend coffee.
HarukaLeo's friend, an illustrator from Kyoto who lives on LINE stickers and tells stories a little bigger than they were.
KentaMasako's son. He runs the croquette stand on Yanaka Ginza and is bad at giving change.
Ono-sanLeo's formal landlady, usually at her gate with a ring of keys.
Dr. IshidaThe calm doctor across the lane, who asks what hurts and what you have already tried.
Mori-sanLeo's team lead at a small company that translates and tests video games.
Already know some Japanese?
Jump in at your level.
Keep your place
Save your progress — it’s free
Keep your place in the course and see which lines you’ve learned.
How the course is built
Every lesson teaches a handful of short lines people really say in Tokyo, not grammar tables. You read and hear each line, follow a short story, practise it with quick exercises, and finish by saying it out loud.
Every line shows furigana on its kanji and a romaji line underneath, so you can read along from day one. The lines are polite everyday Japanese, the kind you use with shop staff, neighbors and colleagues.
The lessons follow one story, so the same people and places come back and earlier lines keep showing up. Nothing you learn is used once and forgotten.
It goes from A1 (your first konnichiwa) to B2 (holding your own in a real conversation). Each lesson takes about 15 minutes.
The course is built around text and audio. The voices are computer-generated, clear and the same every time, so you can replay a line as often as you like. Speaking practice is record-only: you record yourself and compare it with the voice, but the course does not score your pronunciation.