With a population of over 125 million people, Japanese culture has for many years been an integral part of the world. From Pokemon to Manga, and everything in between.
This has also caused interest in learning Japanese to surge.
In this post I'm taking a deep dive into the Japanese version of Uncovered, made by Olly Richards from I Will Teach You a Language to see if it's a good beginner's course for learning Japanese.
The other Uncovered courses: German, Spanish, French, and Italian follow the very same model so if you liked any of those you're going to love Japanese!
Hopefully by the end of this post you will have learnt enough to answer the question: “Can I learn Japanese with Japanese Uncovered?“
At the time of writing this article, Japanese Uncovered is the newest and most comprehensive course in the series.
Olly has really pulled out all stops and produced what is probably the best beginner Japanese course on the market today.
During the course you'll work with all kinds of media from text, to audio, to video, worksheets, quizzes, and assignments.
There's a little something for everyone and it doesn't get boring.
Who is Japanese Uncovered for?
Japanese Uncovered is a self-study beginner's course. This means you can start this course without any prior knowledge in Japanese.
People with some experience (pre-intermediate) would also find a lot of benefit.
The course corresponds roughly to the CEFR levels of A0-B1. This means complete beginner to lower intermediate in normal, human speak.
The StoryLearning method
What is the StoryLearning method?
Olly Richards always loved learning through books and stories, so when he started creating books and courses himself he used stories as a pivotal part of the products.
Recently he started using the name “StoryLearning” to describe his methodology.
He believes that stories are the best to learn from, as you see the actual language in context. Cognates, vocabulary, and grammar are all easier to learn as they appear together.
What is the course made up of?
The course contains 20 modules of Japanese learning.
Here's exactly how the 20 modules are broken down:
There are twenty, yes TWENTY of these modules inside Japanese Uncovered. There's easily materials for 150+ hours of study in the course.
Let's break down each of these lessons:
Introduction
A brief introduction to the module, as well as what you will learn in the chapter.
Read and Listen
In this lesson you'll be going through the next part of the short story:
Here's the meat of the course – a simplified funny story, that you follow along the entire course.
In this lesson, you only read and listen to the Japanese language version of the story.
To help beginners out there is a normal-speed, and slowed down version of the text.
Lesson 1: Vocabulary
In the vocabulary lesson, taught by Olly, you're learning key vocabulary from the text you just read.
It's explained in a clear, and patient way, and the vocabulary Olly highlights is super useful and practical.
Second half of the vocabulary lesson is a worksheet, where you can test your knowledge on this part of the story, and the vocabulary you just learnt from Olly.
Lesson 2: Grammar
In every grammar lesson of Japanese Uncovered you get the following:
One video about Japanese particles
A second video covering the other grammar in the story
