All Language Resources is an independent review site. If you click a product link, we may earn money from a seller at no cost to you. Writing and analyses are author opinions. Learn More

Author name: Tanya

Tanya writes and edits her way around the world, trying to pick up new languages along the way. When not exploring new places or getting tongue-tied over pronunciation drills, she spends her time dancing and reading.

Japanese For Busy People Mini Review: Not That Great

In this post we review Japanese For Busy People. It’s not my top pick for learning Japanese, and here’s why….

Japanese For Busy People

Rating 2.5
★★
★
★★★
Price:

From $27/volume

Summary

Japanese For Busy People is a popular textbook series, but unless you’re set on learning business vocabulary, we think there are better books available. The biggest issue with this series is that you won’t learn how to write Japanese in the standard version, which only uses romaji. This not only makes it impossible to read or write, but also means learning the pronunciation is much harder. You can purchase a kana version of the textbook instead, but even that doesn’t teach kanji until the second volume. The grammar explanations are quite superficial, while the vocabulary is limited and tends to be business-oriented. If you’re learning Japanese to travel, watch anime, or study in Japan, you might become frustrated with the material. In its favor, it includes a variety of exercises and practice drills. However, we believe there are better Japanese textbooks available. We recommend trying Genki or Minna no Nihongo instead.

Visit Japanese For Busy People

Japanese For Busy People Mini Review: Not That Great Read More »

Samidori Mini Review: Free Online Japanese Course

Samidori

Rating 3.7
★★★
★
★★
Price:

Free

Summary

samidori is a free online Japanese course from the University of Kyoto, and as you might expect, it’s a comprehensive, well-organized introduction to the language. There is an extensive range of lessons from absolute beginner up to lower intermediate. They cover the kana, grammar, vocabulary, listening, and reading. However, there are no writing or speaking activities, and although you’ll learn to recognize them, you won’t be taught how to write any kanji. Higher levels also contain fewer lessons than the lower levels. Most of the lessons follow the same format: the lesson topic and vocabulary are introduced in both Japanese and English, then there are example sentences, audio recordings for the vocabulary and example sentences, and finally practice questions. For beginners, samidori is a decent introduction to Japanese, although you’ll want to pair it with kanji studies and writing and speaking practice. Intermediate learners, however, will likely want to use it as a supplementary resource only.

Visit Samidori

Samidori Mini Review: Free Online Japanese Course Read More »

Go! Go! Nihon & Akamonkai Online Japanese Course Mini Review

In our search for the best way to learn Japanese, we came across an interesting Japanese course called Go! Go! Nihon. Here’s a quick review about our findings.

Go! Go! Nihon & Akamonkai Online Japanese Course

Rating 2.7
★★
★
★★★
Price:

90,000¥

Summary

This 12-week beginners Japanese course attempts to recreates the experience of enrolling at a Japanese language school, but from the comfort of your home. You’ll get three to four hours worth of work, including homework, Monday to Friday for almost three months, plus access to a community forum – but it comes at a very high cost. The course is designed to let you pass the JLPT N5  exam, which means you’ll learn the kana, 80 kanji, 1,000 words, and basic survival Japanese for introducing yourself, shopping, expressing opinions, and so on. The lessons make use of text, video, downloadable worksheets, audio files, slideshows that break down grammar, and more. You’re prompted to repeat dialogue and participate in role-plays, and you’ll get the answers to your homework the following morning. However, it’s eye-wateringly expensive. The school justifies it because of the admittedly very high price of studying intensive Japanese courses in Japan. But of course, it’s not really the same as attending a Japanese language school. You’re still studying alone, even though there are learner forums. There’s no pronunciation feedback or group work, just like there aren’t any opportunities to use Japanese outside of the classroom. If you’re happy with the price point and have four hours free each day, then this course might be a good choice for you. However, there are lots more Japanese courses to choose from, most of which are more affordable. Alternatively, you could study a textbook such as Minna no Nihongo or Genki with the help of an online teacher.

Visit Go! Go! Nihon & Akamonkai Online Japanese Course

Go! Go! Nihon & Akamonkai Online Japanese Course Mini Review Read More »

BunPro Mini Review: Japanese Grammar Flashcards For N5–N1

BunPro

Rating 4.0
★★★★★
Price:

$3/month

Summary

BunPro – not to be confused with Bunpo (review) – is a flashcard-based website and app that focuses on grammar. It’s best used as a supplementary resource, and BunPro knows it. In fact, as you go through the flashcards, BunPro will recommend websites where you can learn more about the grammatical feature or word in question, as well as the page number you should go to in certain textbooks. And as well as opting for the standard course order that seems to correspond with the JLPT, you can choose to study the flashcards in pathways that correspond with Genki, Minna no Nihongo, Tae Kim, and more. You can dip in and out of the pathways as you wish, and add and remove content from your flashcard reviews. Each level is divided into sublevels and themes, which makes it easy to spot material you don’t yet know. There are also community discussions about the different grammar points. You could skip the textbooks and just study with BunPro, although it would be a much more superficial introduction to Japanese. What’s more, you would need additional resources for the kana, kanji, vocabulary, and reading, writing, listening and speaking practice. The clue’s in the name, after all: BunPro wants to help you become a pro at Japanese bunpō or grammar. It doesn’t do much else, but as a supplementary grammar resource, it’s a great tool.

Visit BunPro

BunPro Mini Review: Japanese Grammar Flashcards For N5–N1 Read More »

Genki Mini Review: Beginner-Friendly Japanese Textbooks

Genki

Rating 4.5
★★★★
★
★
Price:

From $48 per volume

Summary

Genki, along with Minna no Nihongo, is one of the most popular Japanese textbook series around – and for good reason. There are two volumes, and each of them has an accompanying workbook that you can buy. The main text will teach you reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and more. The chapters are focused on a specific activity, e.g. going shopping, which helps you to immediately put the language in context. While not designed to align with JLPT or CEFR levels, studying both volumes should take you roughly up to A2/N4. Genki is slightly more accessible than Minna no Nihongo: it uses English-language explanations and overall teaches less vocabulary and grammar, while still giving you a fairly decent introduction to the language. That said, you’ll find Genki easier to use if you’ve already studied the kana. If you haven’t yet, don’t worry – it won’t take you long to master that with an app like Skritter (review) or LingoDeer (review).  In short, if you’re looking for something beginner-friendly with English explanations, or are just learning Japanese as a hobby, Genki is an ideal textbook. If you’re planning to move to Japan, however, or want to challenge yourself with a more comprehensive textbook, check out our review of the Minna no Nihongo series.

Visit Genki

Genki Mini Review: Beginner-Friendly Japanese Textbooks Read More »

African Storybook Mini Review: Free Reading Practice

African Storybook

Rating 4.5
★★★★
★
★
Price:

Free

Summary

Struggling to find beginner-level Afrikaans or Yoruba reading materials? Spanish books relevant to Equatorial Guinea instead of Spain or Colombia? Stories in Nigerian Pidgin or Cape Verdean Creole? African Storybook has thousands of free-to-read children’s stories in various African languages, from Acholi through to Zinza. Most of them were written by African authors. The website is best for beginner and lower-intermediate students. The stories are generally designed for young children, with easy-to-read sentences that introduce you to basic vocabulary and some variation in tenses. The difficulty is graded from one to five, with five being the most challenging. You can normally find the English translation of the book, too, although you would probably be better off using a dictionary. Don’t give up if at first you don’t see your language on the website. Some languages have been entered with their English name, others with their original name, and others under several different names. For example, for Swahili, you would need to look under “Kiswahili”, while French texts are under “French”. Frustratingly, not all languages on the dropdown menu currently have texts. According to African Storybook, they have a greater number of books for languages in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. However, as this initiative continues to grow, hopefully they’ll have stories for more and more languages.

Visit African Storybook

African Storybook Mini Review: Free Reading Practice Read More »

AmazingTalker Mini Review: Not Our Top Pick for Web Classes

AmazingTalker

Rating 2.5
★★
★
★★★
Price:

From around $10 per 50-minute class

Summary

AmazingTalker is an italki and Verbling competitor that lets you book classes with language teachers and academic tutors of your choice. It has a lot of attractive features for students, but teachers complain about high commission rates and lack of support. It boasts a 3% acceptance rate for teachers and a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you’re not happy with your class, they’ll rebook you another one for free. There are lots of teachers to choose from, or you can also use their AI Matching Service to find a tutor. The teachers’ profiles include videos, reviews, and their résumé. However, AmazingTalker doesn’t seem a great choice for teachers. It charges English and Japanese teachers astonishingly high commission rates of up to 30%. While these rates fall as teachers earn more through the site, they have to make $1,500 a month before the commission reaches levels comparable to italki and Verbling. Making it worse, there’s an additional 8% fee for payment processing and tax that all teachers have to pay, no matter what language they teach.  There have also been complaints on Reddit from teachers claiming to have been harassed by students and fellow teachers. However, we cannot corroborate these. Given all this, we’d recommend trying italki (review) or Verbling (review) first. Alternatively, check out our guide to the best platforms for online language classes.

Visit AmazingTalker

AmazingTalker Mini Review: Not Our Top Pick for Web Classes Read More »

TeacherOn Mini Review: Lots of Teachers for Indian Languages

TeacherOn

Rating 1.6
★
★
★★★★
Price:

Classes from 50¢ to $80 per hour

Summary

TeacherOn is an italki competitor that allows you to book online or in-person classes with language and/or academic tutors of your choice. It can attract scammers and the tutor quality seems hit or miss, but for some languages, it’s probably the only platform with available teachers. The website started life as TutorIndia, and it still leans heavily towards Indian teachers. For example, it has around 4,500 Hindi teachers compared to italki’s 89. There are also over 300 Kannada teachers, 38 Assamese ones, and 42 Odia ones; in contrast, italk only has 4 teachers for Kannada and 0 for Assamese or Odia. You can contact the first three teachers for free. After that, you can either post your requirements so that teachers can contact you or pay extra to contact more teachers. However, you should be cautious when using the platform, especially if you’re paying off site or meeting your tutor in person. We were shown fake profiles, while TeacherOn publishes a list of people banned for being scammers. There are no student reviews, either. TeacherOn encourages students and teachers alike to do due diligence on people before contacting them, and we echo this sentiment. TeacherOn has plenty of issues. However, for certain languages, it’s invaluable. It may be the only way to study some of them from abroad.

Visit TeacherOn

TeacherOn Mini Review: Lots of Teachers for Indian Languages Read More »

Verbling Review: Online Classes With Helpful Revision Tools

Verbling

Rating 4.6
★★★★
★
★

Summary

Verbling is an online language-class marketplace where you can take lessons with teachers of your choice. It has some student-friendly extra features, including a built-in online classroom, flashcards, homework calendar, and a filing system for lesson materials. There are also useful but disorganized forums where you can discuss languages, share writing for critique, and do free language drills and exercises.

The lessons are generally high quality and well structured, plus the filters make it easy to find teachers who specialize in everything from accent reduction to interview preparation. 

However, it can be slightly pricier than alternatives, so if you’re on a tight budget, you may want to look elsewhere. It also has fewer languages than some of the bigger competitors, so it might not be a good choice if you want to study Azerbaijani, Khmer, or Yoruba.

Quality 4.5
★★★★
★
★

There are some less experienced teachers, but I found the lessons to be more consistently high quality than on italki.

Thoroughness 5.0
★★★★★

The classroom technology, flashcards, and filing system are fantastic for learners and easy to use.

Value 4.5
★★★★
★
★

Some teachers charge more than on italki, but you get better classroom technology, more privacy, and fewer disorganized teachers.

I Like
  • I quickly found great teachers.
  • The platform’s extra features, such as teacher-made, personalized flashcards, help you review the material learned in each lesson.
  • It seems focused on long-term progression as well as immediate student satisfaction.
  • You don’t have to give out your contact details, thanks to the classroom technology.
I Don’t Like
  • Some teachers don’t use the platform’s flashcards and materials system.
  • There are fewer languages available than on italki.
  • You can only pay in US dollars, plus there’s a hidden fee.
  • The forums need more moderation.
Price

Prices are set by the teacher and range from $5 to $75 for an hour-long lesson. You can get discounts for buying packs of 5, 10, or 20 lessons with a teacher. Every student gets one free trial lesson, after which they’re $6 each.

VISIT VERBLING

I’ve got a confession to make: italki is one of my least favorite online language-learning resources. However, it was my go-to option for a long time, and I understand why people love it: it’s cheap, has teachers in nearly every language imaginable, and the app has a bunch of extra community features.

…

Verbling Review: Online Classes With Helpful Revision ToolsRead More »

Verbling Review: Online Classes With Helpful Revision Tools Read More »