“Let’s Learn Japanese” Video Series

Back in October I found a learning Japanese video series called “Let’s Learn Japanese” on Crunchy Roll. Unfortunately I got too addicted to watching the Japanese dramas (and lately Taiwanese as well) on the site to have any time left to go through this series.

Until today … While looking for another drama to watch my eyes caught “Let’s Learn Japanese,” and I was instantly reminded of my intention to check it out. So I did.

The episodes are half an hour each and usually start with a review, then a short skit followed by some explanations on the expressions used. Afterwards, you’ll be presented with the skit again, and hopefully you understand it better this time.

I haven’t watched the series entirely, but I find it to be a nice resource for learning Japanese for the following reasons:

1. Good listening practice. The dialogs seem to be at native speaking speed. It may be quite a bit fast in the beginning, but since the skits are repeated a lot, you start to get the hang of it after a while.
2. It’s got a story, which makes learning not so boring.
3. The skits (outside the main story) used in the explanations are quite amusing a lot of times.
4. Even though romaji is used throughout, it also covers the writing system (the first series covers Hiragana) and how to write them.
5. The vocabulary is quite decent with lots of every day expressions covered. Here is a sampling of the vocabulary up to episode 10 (there are 26 in the first series) :

Kanji	Kana	English
花火	はなび	fireworks
団地	だんち	multi-unit apartments
風呂場	ふろば	bathroom
池	いけ	pond
鍵	かぎ	key
場所	ばしょ	place, location
砂糖	さとう	sugar
明るい	あかるい	bright, shiny
汚い	きたない	dirty
先に	さきに	ahead
お皿	おさら	plate
履く	はく	to put on
脱ぐ	ぬぐ	to take off
急ぐ	いそぐ	to hurry
押す	おす	to push
止める	とめる	to stop, turn off
引き出し	ひきだし	drawer
借る	かる	to borrow
捨てる	すてる	to throw away
開ける	あける	to open
閉める	しめる	to shut
点ける	つける	to turn on
	うわぎ	jacket
	いれる	to put into
使い方	つかいかた	way to use something
置く	おく	to put, to place
乗せる	のせる	to place on
住所	じゅうしょ	address
指名	しめい	name
生年月日	せいねんがっぴ	date of birth
等	など	and so on
牛乳	ぎゅうにゅう	milk
洗濯	せんたく	laundry
台所	だいどころ	kitchen
掃除	そうじ	cleaning