Solid content, meh graphics.

Let me say off the bat that if you bought the previous version and didn’t find it robust enough you really will want to give it another try in the new version.

I don’t really care about the gamification features, but I appreciate that they’re not obtrusive so you can just do your own thing. The fact that you can’t freely change the text or main window size or hide the sidebar is a bit annoying too. I hope more aesthetic refinements will be coming in the future.

I’ve tried a few other apps and books for self-teaching Japanese (including Rosetta Stone) and this one works the best for how I prefer to learn — focusing on writing and reading first instead of memorizing random phrases. This app starts with the fundamentals (writing each character of hiragana and katakana) and breaks them up neatly so you progress naturally towards the parts of a sentence, verb tenses, etc. The way the English text is written is very accessible, but definitely intended for teens or adults. The added recordings and grammatical breakdowns for every Japanese word or sentence is a great learning tool. As someone who teaches, I can tell a lot of thought has gone into how this app was designed from a pedagogical point of view. If you are looking to learn Japanese on your own, this is a good place to start.

*However* it is important to note that this is the “beginner” app and does NOT get into kanji. That is in the “Intermediate” app. So yes, you will have to pay twice to get the whole thing.

somecells about Human Japanese, v3.0