Busuu: "OK this is how you say "hi" in Japanese" Yuta: "Yes but actually no"

Yuta should make a japanese learning app

If someone wants to understand what happens in 9:42 : The thing with は (wa) is that it doesn't say anything about what grammatical role the noun has in the sentence, it just says that the noun is the "theme" of the sentence, in other word we're introducing what we're talking about. Usually, textbooks explains the "X は" structure with translations like "as for X" or "speaking of X", and although it's quite a convoluted phrasing, it explains well the idea behind the particle wa. Because when you say "speaking of X", X is not necessarily the subject. You could say "Speaking of Italia, I never been there", and Italia wouldn't be the subject. The idea is the same with "wa". So, in a sentence like "watashi wa mariko desu" (I am Mariko), the thing we're speaking about is indeed the subject of the sentence, but you could have a sentence like "niku wa tabenai", (I don't eat meat) where niku (meat) would be the object despite being marked by wa, and the actual subject (I, me) is omitted. If you want a particle that actually marks the subject, it would be が (ga). Ga always marks the subject, but this can also be confusing if you think your sentences with a western eye, because a sentence like "Watashi wa, anime ga suki" would be translated in english as " I like anime", with I as the subject and anime as the object. But in japanese, "anime" is the subject, because suki is an adjective meaning "likable", and anime is what is likable here. So literally it would be like "As for me, Anime is likable".

"We (Japanese) usually need context" Yuta, there is a giant picture of a deer right in front of your face. Moreover, I like your glasses!

I've been learning Japanese with Busuu for about 6 months. I'm almost through the A1 portion of it, and my friend's mom, who is from kyoto, says that my Japanese is getting to about a 1st graders level. I know about 42 of the common kanji. Overall, it's been a fantastic app for allowing me to get a base on the go so that I can focus my studies more intensely at a later time.

I tried Yuta's Japanese Vocabulary Shortcut. I wish I had something like that when I was first starting with my Japanese studies. I think I'm too advanced at this point for it to be worth the $50 a month for me, because it's mostly built for people who are beginners, even the Level 4 stuff isn't difficult for me to understand most of the time, but I was still able to get a lot out of it because it explains the subtleties of real-life spoken Japanese that was never taught to me in class. It's true, even at the end of college with a bachelor's in Japanese, I still didn't understand it well enough to actually be able to use it. I've recently started consuming actual Japanese media in Japanese, ie ebooks, and I can already see signs of improvement and have learned a lot.

I should also mention you forgot several features of the app, 1 you can review words, you can review grammar. 2 there is a community of native speakers that help to correct our freeform assignments. 3 recently they added a new service to learn from a native tutor, for extra cost. And added lessons in a manga format.

Actually, I am learning Japanese with Busuu as a German guy. Of course the first lessons just want to introduce a bit and later you understand more and more of the context-oriented language. Every rule will be explained (when u say sayonara or other things). For me, as a German, it is very good to understand. I also use books and other sources. I am very happy with Busuu.

That first comment reminds me of the times I get asked questions like, "How do you say "hello" in Japanese?" The person usually gets thrown aback or frustrated a bit when I say, "Do you mean in the morning, or afternoon, or evening? Is it your friend or your boss?.." And the list goes on P.S. I haven't checked yet, but it would be great to have a series of these videos covering the most popular Japanese-learning apps. Also, I really appreciate the in-detail explanations and caveats you give. Will be looking for future videos like this, thank you!

It's fun to me that I have learned enough Japanese by now to accurately predict what you'd suggest as the "natural sounding" alternative. xD

This is very helpful. In my city in England, we have many foreign students who learn English from the textbook and struggle to understand the English we use when in practise. It's interesting to see that this approach is common with other languages too. I think immersion with real life content and language partners is a lot more beneficial.

Actually it teaches the casual way but in further lessons. In A2 lesson 31 and so on you know all details about it ( including what you said in the video).

I appreciate that you reviewed this. People recommends Busu for learning languages. Although I installed it, I never opened it, no time yet 😅 But I was able to see how it actually looks with your video.

Using textbooks and native material together can teach you the theory and once understood can be applied while watching native stuff

0:13 If you paid to get 日本語上手'd, you got scammed.

I'm using this app for two years now for japanese and I think it's very useful. I use it to see what's next to learn so I do the lessons on the app to understand the basic concept of things and then maybe watch videos about it or read articles to learn it naturally and I combine that with a lot of japanese media consumption and I really feel like improving a lot each day even if it's just one new word I learned so yeah I like Busuu even though it's teaching textbook language:) (My japanese is no where near good so all I just said is just my impression from using it for a long time) (Btw the course is not finished that's why everything after mid A2 is basically unusable)

Thanks for doing this video, it’s good to know the strengths and weaknesses of the app, I started using it at the start of the year and feel like it’s good to use in combination with watching videos from native speakers like yourself

"How !" is a somewhat old-fashioned English idiom. It's declarative, and somewhat opinionated but also agreement-seeking. I would make out "How fun!" as comparable to 楽しいよね. "Have fun!" is imperative, and equivalent to 楽しんで【ください】. They are completely unrelated. The pattern behind "have fun!" does not generalize well, and "fun" functions here as a noun, rather than an adjective.

I love renshuu, it's been very beginner for me unlike other apps I've tried. I wanted to start from the beginning beginning, like learning Hiragana, Katana and Kanji. Other apps have you learn words, greetings and numbers first but learning how to remember the character or say it doesn't stick at all. The games in renshuu are fun but I haven't learned words yet to do some of them. They recently added an RPG game for drawing drawing characters to defeat enemies that I find fun to do often. I cant speak on other aspects of learning from renshuu because I'm still finding time to complete the characters for Hiragana > -

I'm not a native japanese speaker and I don't doubt what Yuta said about a lot of things in this review, but: as someone who used Busuu for quite a while I think Busuu is a great place to start to get your feet wet and to find something you can do daily to make a habbit out of learning. In my opinion anyone who really wants to learn a language with it's ins an outs should get accompanying material like books, (paid) online courses or real language school if you are really serious about it. Just a single application won't teach you a complete language. But I have to defend Busuu here a little too. A lot of things which Yuta made corrections about in the first lessons will be cleared up by Busuu on the long run, too. It gets quite in depth in later lessons. Also: Skipping to the last lesson and saying it's unnatural doesn't give Busuu enough credit, too, since they are currently reworking the old material with better explanations and more in depth lessons. They are constantly working and improving upon the japanese course, and the last dialogue happens to be "old" material which was not yet reworked. Like I said in the beginning, I'm not in the position to pass judgement about what Yuta says about japanese, I won't doubt a native speaker, but judging a complete application with plenty of material and pretty in depth explanations by only picking out 3 or 4 lessons doesn't give the application justice either in my opinion.

I paid $50 for a year of Busuu. It helped me to learn Japanese and you get so many more languages as well.

Your reviews on apps is really good. Very interesting!!

Good job Yuta you're creative and I love your videos.

You are absolutely right, Yuta-san, I have learnt my foreign languages from real people with lots of conversations. The best way to improve our conversation skills is to go for a trip in that country and speak with a lot of native speakers. Like in every language written and spoken Japanese are two different things. I am actually impressed this language has slangs as well, very interested in learning it

Yuta thank you i have so much time to owe you u making my Japanese learning so easy🙌🔥🙇

thank you for reviewing busuu. I've been waiting for a native's opinion :). I think that busuu is more useful for preparing for an exam because it uses the technique of 'memorise this phrase/structure'

I just subscribed and you post this. Incredible coincidence! I was trying to study Japanese last year but had no money to pay for this app program so this plan was canceled. Interesting to hear what a native speaker would say about Busuu

as someone who studied japanese 20 years ago: i can confirm this is very textbook. as someone who has not looked at modern beginner's japanese textbook and havent been in japan since 2012: i cant confirm if its archaic or outdated

You should try Memrise for your next video! They have recordings of native speakers so I’d love to see what you think of their structure/grammar. Also for the ‘tanoshii ne!’ bit, it’s translated as ‘how fun’ which is practically the same thing as ‘it’s fun isn’t it?’ in terms of intent. Just a little correction since it looks like you misread the line.

Busuu uses native Japanese voice actors. It might sounds unnatural as it’s slowed down and accentuated for a better listening but it’s much easier for beginners. for example, hearing the sounds clearly articulated and separated helped memorise the aural form of a word. It’s exactly the same kind of accentuated speech patterns you’d get with any textbook.

Could you possibly review Renshuu please Yuta? I've found that it's pretty well-designed but I'd enjoy an experts' opinion because there are undoubtedly quirks I have missed. I also use your mailing list and a bunch of other resources to learn but I think Renshuu is really cool!

Could you maybe do a review of the Marugoto textbook? We have started to use it at University last semester and I think the structure is a little different from textbooks like “Mina no Nihongo” for example 😄

At the higher levels of the app, the grammar is actually very good. Of course, you always have to accompany it with books or guides like Tae Kim's guide.

Honestly Yuta I do watch all of your videos but I’ve never tried the learning Japanese with yuta, But Ibe started studying 4-5 hours a day in bussu and it’s turning out good I’ve managed to fully learn katakana/hiragana and the numbers up to 100 also learned clocks in 4 days

I think you should review Memrise next 💡🤓 I have been learning Japanese for only a couple of months but have been impressed by Memrise so far because they use native speakers in their videos all the time 👍

I don't think 私は真理子です is a bad place to start. They just need to follow this up with telling people how this is almost never used and how it gets shortened. The 私は is implied. It's still there, even if you don't say it. (Or your word of choice for "I") I do think teaching people that this is implied is more beneficial than just saying です is all you need. I do agree, though, that just teaching the 私は version without any additional information is probably worse.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the main difference between は and が this: は - establishes the context of whatever comes before the particle while putting emphasis on the rest of the phrase/clause. が - emphasises the thing before this particle, more than what comes after. So for clarification; スプリンターは急に走る (emphasis on 急に; As for sprinters, they run _swiftly_ ) スプリンターが急に走る (emphasis on スプリンター; _Sprinters_ run swiftly.) I'm sure there's more finer nuances of the usage of these two particles, so I'm only going for the general idea for now.

I actually really like this app/website. As you go along in the lessons it gets to be a bit more relaxed. While it is clear that it’s textbook conversation, when you’re just trying to get the basics to jump into a really difficult language, it’s helpful. I use it along with other learning tools to practice and understand Japanese

For me, if you want to learn Japanese, the best way is with a private teacher, be it on person or online, then you can study by yourself the rest of the time, but having somebody who speaks the language to check on your knowledge and explain things you don't understand in your own language is incredibly good and if you put some energy into it, you'll learn really fast

Hiii! Great video! I moved to Japan 6 months ago and have been using Busuu for almost a year and after much textbook Japanese, we just got to casual speech. The way Busuu teaches Japanese at the beginning is very similar to how English textbooks in Japan teach English to Japanese people hehe. That being said, Busuu has helped me understand every day conversations at my job and around me. I think while it's not the best, if you use it while taking notes and understand that its a good foundation, it can be helpful. I agree with you that Busuu is way better than Duolingo lol.

I decided to start using duolingo to just get some start up into the language. It did help a bit and because I watched some native speakers like you, I knew (as an example) that "Konnichiwa" meant good afternoon and not what the app said.

Fine, damn it! I'll subscribe to your course (really, though) XD. You're right on the fact that the most frustrating thing about online courses is that you could be studying for YEARS and still not being able to understand a normal conversation.

I was scrolling through yt and i saw your video and this reminded me about my day streak in Duolingo 10 minutes before 12am :D

Good points and good explanations.

I recommend you try Mango Languages next! It has actually real people talking for its audio

19:27 Hello Yuta, I want to know if in this sentence it would be a natural conversation if it had the TE form, great video by the way.

Have you reviewed Lingo Deer? I think it's the best out there to learn Japanese. Also hello from Mexico.

Can you review Pimsleur next? Love these language app analysis videos!

Been listening to Pimsleur's audiobooks for learning Japanese, I'm curious about your opinion on them! They've gotten me mildly confident at least (though they make it a bit hard some times to hear differences between '-shou' and '(ma or de)-su yo'. At level 2, 30 lessons later, they haven't used Sayonara (I figured that's farewell, more than goodbye) and instead just use "Ja" or "Ja, ashita" and the like.

22:45 I don't remember if the feature was already there when you tried Duolingo but they are replacing their entire Spoken Audio to (I guess native) speakers more and more. So almost no TTS anymore and they are using pitch accents (still a learner so can't really confirm that the pitch accents are correct) You can really hear it in the "Stories"-Tab

having started with japanese on busuu lately it seems that the situation around TTS has improved. a lot of examples are actual audio (or video) pieces now with people speaking.

I've been using a combination of the Genki textbooks, Anki (refold and JLPT decks), Pimsleur, Renshuu, various native speakers youtube channels, and manga. I feel like I am making decent progress for the past 5 months.

Is the formal aspect work better when writing and reading? If so I think that's good because reading and writing is important so one would sacrifice street language, but learning to speak formal it would even be easier to speak regular after leering. So fully taught

Recently I came across "renshuu" and it seems pretty good so far! They show you the pitch accents and sound to have an accurate intonation(..?), along with a course that can be tailored as you like. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Interesting that it didn't allow you to just say "Matt desu" instead of "Watashi wa Matt desu." I think even Duolingo might accept "Matt desu", despite their usual overuse of "watashi".

You made a 30 minute video without explaining what ブス　means in Japanese! Missed opportunity for a zinger yuta!

Very helpful video. I've watched some JapanesePod videos. I could never understand what she said at the end or what it meant. Now I know it's Yoku dekimashita

And Yuta, how to pronounce "Hououin Kyouma (鳳凰院凶真)". Is it pronounced with a very long oh sound??

I am learning Japanese through work (our parent company is a Japanese conglomerate) and my teacher has been using the Marugoto books. What do you think of these textbooks?

Oh btw I signed up to your email list, I can add you to miku misa & others helping me learn Japanese. I only got the welcome email so far but look forward to the lessons & hope it gets me closer to intermediate or higher!

I’m using Busuu to learn Spanish and I’m finding it useful especially when it comes to small pronunciation differences between dialects. Like ci and ce are pronounced one way in Spain and another why in other Spanish speaking countries. There’s a whole lesson about that on Busuu

I'm really curious to see Yuuta do a review of Lingodeer too😊

Surprisingly Duolingo got that one right, hana です is the example i remember... I stead of using わたしけ or something similar... That is interesting as they usually have bad, unnatural pronaunciation and are Only really useful for learning the characters in hiragana and katakana

It's very interesting to me how you pointed out that "no de" is more natural than "desukara". I was used to, and wanted to, use "desukara", but then in my Tokyo based Japanese language scool, they taught us to use "kara" and "dakara" (depending on whether it's used after a noun, after a verb, after an i-adjective, or after a na-adjective), and not "desukara". Then, later on, they taught us to switch to "no de" and "nano de" instead for the same things whenever we were meant to speak using more polite keigo Japanese. In other words, they more or less told us that "kara" and "dakara" = casual and/or regular polite Japanese, and "no de" and "nano de" = very polite keigo Japanese. But then you say that "no de" is more natural Japanese, and for me, casual Japanese speech is more natural, while keigo is more artificial, so...I'm a bit confused at this point...Any thoughts on this?

I would like you to test the Japanese course on Mango languages. They actually teach the whole time of day greeting and other cultural context things!

there is an video on Busuu. where they say what greeting u use on what time of the day

@ That Japanese Man Yuta Very useful review! You lost me a little at the ka particle stuff though. Many of the uses and meanings of the ka particle stem from its fundamental meaning as the question marker, right? So wouldn't it then make a lot of sense to teach this essential meaning first, before giving all of the complex and confusing ones at the beginning?

Please try Lingodeer! I wanna see how legit it is.. I actually like Lingodeer really much. It has "conversational features" too Which would be considered "natural speaking" Thank you for your reviews. It is really appreciated 😊

Thanks! this helped me understand Japanese better!

In a traditional view it's が that marks the subject of a sentence, not は, since you can turn almost anything into a topic (subject, direct/indirect object, place, time, random adverb etc). Though が has its own peculiarities, so I prefer to call it just 'focus particle'.

After 10 years of learning this beautiful I have learned so much. I still have a lot to learn. When I compare to English and Japanese, it really can’t be. Like は and が don’t have translations all the time. When my friends ask me, what it is this word? I can’t really translate it. Still learning a lot and love it 😊 The なら paragraph even sounds weird to me. The app does sound very unnatural. When I was 16, I started with Rosetta Stone and then textbooks but used KZfaq then along with other sources. I have a friend who is Japanese and she helps me a lot when she can.

I use busuu with 2 other learning apps and about 3 reading apps as well as an add on for Firefox that will replace words with Japanese translations. I will say that I think using multiple different ways to learn it is a good thing. I even have a grammar book😅.

The Japanese textbook we use in our college is genki, which I think it’s pretty good (however I don’t know how good it is compared to others in all honesty)

A polyglot I follow suggested to not worry too much about conjugation/grammar at first. Instead focus on learning vocabulary. If you use the wrong conjugation natives aren't going to say omg what is this gaijin saying lol. They will know what you are saying. It's better to know the words rather than how to properly conjugate or whatever. Would you agree with this approach for learning japanese?

Hi Yuta, I have been following your videos for a while and I realize that often the pitch accents of words in Japanese determine the meaning of them ( when there are no kanji --> in speech ). So I was wondering, in your opinion, at what time is most appropriate to learn pitch accent: At the beginning of the course at a beginner level or at a somewhat more advanced level ?

Nice Yuta

It is a really nice video. Can you tell me what kind of editor do you use? Please!

I could be wrong, but I feel like the nuance of a question can change depending on whether you use a question mark. Compare そうですか？ and そうですか。 I feel like they express vastly different ideas.

Thanks Yuta.

I understand what you mean by unnatural. I tested the English curriculum on this app and that sounded unnatural too, so I figured it was setting me up to sound weird in Japanese. 🙄 I'm subscribed to your email list because I want to sound natural and not like a robot. I want to be able to communicate and travel without people thinking I'm weird.. 🤣

I'm 70% through Busuu A1 course and I really enjoy it. Just some points to keep it mind: 1) "watashi wa" later disappears when it's not needed in the context so it's mostly just at the beginning 2) particles are well explained step by step, so for instance "ni" is to tell time, then to tell direction etc. I like it that they don't throw everything at once. 3) The app is just to get started and as soon as you. Once you get the basics start IMMERSION: this is a crucial thing when learning a language. Quickly you'll pick up how "normal" Japanese tl;dr it's a great app to get started (way above Duolingo let's say), just keep some things in mind and use other sources too

idk about duolingo on the web version but the mobile app version is pretty flexible for example the options are; [boku, no namae, ha, john, desu] but you can just say john desu and you actually can switch stuff like 庭に犬があります into 犬が庭にあります

I think it should show both. It should show the origin of the sentence that the modern sentence is derived from then explain why.

I'm learning katakana and hiragana with lingo deer I'm using the Genki text book for grammar And I'm learning vocab on the way

I always find it strange whenever they translate こんにちは as "Hello" (which isn't time-sensitive) or "Good afternoon" (since こんにちは can be used in the late morning), especially when there is another phrase that better encapsulates it like "Good day". Even more so when a section of こんにちは could be literally be translated as "day" (今日は) instead of "afternoon".

Yuta acc did a lil chuckle here and that’s the first time I’ve seen him ACTUALLY like laugh or react like without sounding so teacher-like! 9:47 this is a good thing btw, please laugh more 😭

Hey, Yuta! What application or method would you recommend to learn Japanese? I’ve taken a class but I’m looking to get back into it from the beginning.

that explain why I always feel like japanese news or blogs actually seems easier than textbooks in terms of grammar

What are your thoughts on the Genki books? I've been told by Japanese tutors and teachers it's the best, and I like them, but I'd like your opinion

Yuta sensei! Would you mind reacting to some of Cure Dolly sensei's videos and your take on her approach on teaching Japanese structure / grammar?

very informative video! did you happen to try LingoDeer too?

Yes Mr Yuta thanks you got me as I was about use basuu for learn Japanese better learn from native

I am using Busuu right now. It has changed a lot and starts you working on learning hirigana first.

In my course at Keio University, we often are taught with saying "私は". But I think that is to learn the particles.

You're amazing Yuta. I really enjoy each and every video on your channel 😍😘😘

Dayum my man Yuta do be looking real good with that haircut/facial combo

Now I'm actually curious as to how English is taught as a secondary language in other countries, 'cause I know that it seem to be a struggle for many from pronunciation to rules and exceptions to rules. I've wanted to learn Japanese for years and I'm happy that I'm committing few kanji to memory without writing them. For me, though I'm an introvert, I feel like I'll get the best grasp of Japanese just from going to Japan and listening around me. Until then though, I'll continue to use whatever I can to help me learn the kanji.

25:00 Mark is マーク, like so what are the rules for katakana -ifying for words with Rs or Ls in them like that? I often see the R sound replaced with the vowel extender thingy. What if the word actually sounds like it should have an extended vowel and the ー makes sense to me to use there, does that make read like an R instead?

I use Busuu now for some time. It is ridiculously easy and upfront childlike at the beginning, but... after some lessons it gets to the point were subjects are dropped and it tells you that often (in conntext) subjects are not nessesary. I am german, lernd english and now japanese and while thinking back, the english approch in school was identical. But as for every singel app or teaching method out there, nothing beats experiance with the real deal. I am far of from understanding anime and eaven farther away to read a newspaper. but over time, I will get there. What is good about Busuu (or not, deppends on the people) is that nativ speakers can correct you in sertan lessons or tasks given to you. I tryed to lern japanese for some time now, and with many apps or online schools but this time I think, I get somewere. at least I hope so.

I think is good to learn basics, learn words or vocabulary and then you can watch movies, anime or youtube channels a this one to improve your japanese 😊 I mean, I'm mexican and I always learn new words even if we don't use them