You were swimming, weren’t you!? Don’t worry, just checking. Summer’s here and we’re in the mood to celebrate this warm joyous season – and what better way to start summer off right than have a Summer Celebration Sale! Why celebrate summer you ask? Excellent question. Because not only is the sun shining and the ice-cream plentiful, but we also have a lot of NEW things to release. We’re kicking off July with 6 brand NEW languages, NEW Premium Flashcards, NEW lessons AND a NEW discount of 22% OFF for Premium Subscribers. Click here to get the discount and get all of our new features! This Fourth of July, we welcome Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian, Hindi, Hebrew and Indonesian to the Pod101 family! Also, our Premium... Show more

Hej! Hallo! Sziasztok! That’s “Hello” in Dutch, Swedish, and Hungarian. Did we get it right? We’re really excited about our 3 new European additions to the Innovative Language Learning family and today we’re announcing yet another three languages. We’ve held our breath for so long to keep these a secret that we’re just about ready to faint! Ready? Starting July 4, Hindi, Hebrew, and Indonesian will be getting the complete Innovative Language Learning treatment with their own 101.com websites! Now, even though these languages are spoken by a collective 725 million people worldwide, they aren’t given enough attention online – or anywhere for that matter. Until now! If you’ve never had a good reason to learn these languages before,... Show more

In case you thought we were kidding about world language domination, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. After months of hard work, we’re proud to announce the launch of AustralianPod101.com for all of you Down Under lovers! Just kidding. Though, we are giving this idea serious consideration. Coming this July to a laptop screen right in front of you, we will be introducing 6 new exciting languages to the Innovative Language Learning family. Dutch, Hungarian, and Swedish are just the first additions to our language family on track to be released July 5th. We’d love to tell you about the other 3 but it’s a big secret – you’ll have to wait another 2 weeks! Now, the Dutch, Hungarian and Swedish languages aren't... Show more

Premium Members, your Premium Account just got a whole lot more powerful! My Flashcards now allows you to study the Japanese words you want by importing lists from audio and video lessons, your My WordBank and the Japanese Core Word Lists 2000. Here's a quick rundown of the new features: My Flashcards Dashboard: My Flashcards have a brand new interface. Import words from any audio and video lesson, My WordBank and the Core Word Lists. Create, edit and delete as many decks as you want! Create a New Deck: How you want to study is completely up to you! You control what displays on the front and back of cards. Create new decks out of the existing words in My Flashcards. Simple pick the words, name your deck and you're ready to... Show more

All eyes are on Japan right now. We've put together a list of resources we have found particularly helpful over the past week. These links will help you get caught up, stay updated and offer ways to help Japan. Our Story: JapanesePod101 After the Quake Social Media Heroes of the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster English news from Japanese sources: NHK World Kyodo News in English Wall Street Journal's Japan Real Time Blog BBC World News On Twitter: hashtags: #jpquake #jishin_e follow: @TimeOutTokyo @makiwi @norishikata Japan DisasterTwitter Cheat Sheet via The Wall Street Journal Find Loved Ones: More Reading on Radiation Issue U.K.'s Chief Scientific Officer Professor John... Show more

** Updated ** 50% of all subscription purchases will be donated directly to disaster relief efforts. Please help us help Japan here. It's been 1 week since the 9.0 earthquake and devastating tsunamis struck Tohoku, Japan. As students of the Japanese language, we know you're deeply worried about Japan and it's people. We also know that many of you have visited the country and have made close friends along the way. We at Innovative Language Learning and JapanesePod101.com want to do all we can to help. Along with cutting back on electricity in Tokyo both at the office (the Innovative Language Learning office is closed until after the long weekend) and at home, we're also doing what we can to help get much needed supplies up to the... Show more

Thank you everyone for your outpouring concern for the safety of our staff. The unfolding events of the last week have been stressful, but compared to others, we have been very lucky. For the time being, the Innovative Language Learning office has closed until after the long weekend. This is a precautionary measure, as many of us have worried family members back home and other affairs to attend to post-quake. We hope you understand and we do look forward to resuming normal (or as normal as can be) operations soon. Many of you have been asking for updates. Here are a few pictures to share of the JapanesePod101 office after the earthquake hit Japan on Friday. Upstairs of our office, some bookshelves toppled over. Thankfully, no one... Show more

Friday was a dark day in Japan. A massive earthquake struck Japan at 2:46pm and life here changed forever. While the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks gave us quite a scare in downtown Tokyo, where our office is located, everyone escaped unscathed. Now that we've had the weekend to reflect on the situation, we'd like to give a shout out to a few of this weekend's unsung heroes and also share our experience with you. First, let's talk about Skype. At a time, when one would pay any price to know about their loved ones, Skype provided this service for FREE. Of course, the 3G network remaining intact was instrumental. Amplifying the importance of the service Skype provided was the fact the Japanese telephone system crashed right... Show more

You have probably heard about the tragic events of March 11, 2011 in Japan. (Learn more.) First, our deepest condolences to all the people who have suffered losses from the tragic event. Fortunately, here at our Tokyo office everyone is okay. We can't thank you enough for all of your encouraging and supportive messages. It really meant a tremendous amount to us during yesterday's events, and even more as the true scale of the disaster unfolded. Unfortunately, Japan was hit very hard. The scale of the damage is not fully understood, but the damage in Northern Japan seems extensive. Yesterday was spent tending to our families and friends and ensuring everyone was okay. We are now ready to do everything in our power to help the... Show more

Hello everyone! We here at JapanesePod101.com hope you had a wonderful holiday season! We'd like to let you all know about the great lessons we have coming up for you in 2011. Here is our 2011 lesson schedule: JapanesePod101.com 2011 Lesson ScheduleMondays: (rotation) → Absolute Beginner Season 1  / Beginner Season 6 Tuesdays: (rotation) → Lower Intermediate Season 6 (all year) + New Feature Lessons (early 2011) / Keigo lessons (late 2011) Wednesdays: No Lessons Thursdays: Throwback Thursday: Old lessons from the archive Fridays: Learn With Video Lessons Saturdays: No Lessons Sundays: News (2~3 times a month) / Audio Blog Season 4 (once a month) Mondays will see a brand new series for beginners: Absolute Beginner... Show more