Practise Japanese with a native speaker, and give them English conversation practice in return. Roughly 123 million people speak Japanese natively, so partners are easy to find; the useful discipline is showing up on time.
Endonym
日本語
Script
Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji - three systems used together
Spoken in
Japan, Brazil, the United States, Peru
First thing to learn
こんにちは — "Hello / good afternoon"
US Foreign Service Institute estimate for an English speaker starting from zero
~88 weeks
Furthest from English
Japanese changes the verb depending on who you are talking to, so politeness is grammar rather than tone of voice - choosing the casual form with the wrong person is a real mistake. Three writing systems are used in one sentence, and word order puts the verb last.
Knowing this in advance changes what you do with a partner. Grammar drills on Japanesewill not fix a habit your first language gave you — only producing the sentence out loud and being corrected will. That is the specific thing an exchange gives you and an app does not.
A language exchange dies when nobody has anything to talk about. Take these into the call and you will fill the first half without silences.
Say こんにちは (kon-nee-chee-WAH) as your first line, then ask your partner when they would use it and when they would choose something more formal.
Ask your partner to write your own name in 日本語, then explain which sounds in your name do not exist in Japanese.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Japan. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in Japanese first, then again in English.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Brazil. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in Japanese first, then again in English.
Ask your partner for one sentence that exposes the hard part: Japanese changes the verb depending on who you are talking to, so politeness is grammar rather than tone of voice - choosing the casual form with the wrong person is a real mistake.
Switch to English and ask your partner to explain their own language's hardest feature to you. This is the half where you pay for the practice, so take it as seriously as your own turn.
You are not here to improve your English — you already have it. Practise Japanese with someone who speaks it natively, and pay for it by answering their English questions properly. Fluent English speakers are the scarcest resource on an exchange, which is why you will match quickly.
Japan has one of the largest English-learning populations in Asia, and a great many of those learners specifically want conversation practice with a native speaker because exam-style teaching leaves speaking weak.
88 weeks of full-time study to working proficiency, on the US Foreign Service Institute scale - furthest from english. Japanese changes the verb depending on who you are talking to, so politeness is grammar rather than tone of voice - choosing the casual form with the wrong person is a real mistake. Three writing systems are used in one sentence, and word order puts the verb last.
Around 123 million native speakers, concentrated in Japan, Brazil, the United States. English has already borrowed karaoke, tsunami, emoji from it, so you are not starting from nothing.
Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji - three systems used together. Because the script is not the one you read in now, reading and speaking improve at different rates and are worth practising separately rather than hoping conversation covers both.
こんにちは (kon-nee-chee-WAH) - "Hello / good afternoon". こんにちは is safe and neutral from late morning onwards. Mornings take おはようございます and evenings こんばんは, and the wrong time of day is noticed more than a grammar slip.
karaoke, tsunami, emoji, karate and sushi all reached English from Japanese - 5 words you can use on day one.
Free matching, free voice calls, free video calls. One twenty-minute call is enough to know whether it works for you.
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