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New App Update! Get The Newest Japanese Lessons For Free No Matter Where You Are

New update! Click here to download Innovative Language 101 for free!

Hello Listener,

Did you know that every new JapanesePod101 lesson is yours free?

Fact: All new lessons are open to everyone for 3 weeks after the publish date. This is one of the major benefits of the Free Lifetime Account. Just sit back and learn. High-quality Japanese audio and video lessons come out every week.

But here’s what’s new…
You now get the newest lessons on your mobile device, anywhere, anytime!

New update! Click here to download Innovative Language 101 for free!

New update! Click here to download Innovative Language 101 for free!

Users requested this. We listened. Innovative Language 101 for the iPhone, iPad and Androidthe App that gives you your lessons on the go – has an awesome new update: Newest Lessons.

If you’re learning Japanese and want to get all new lessons all the time, you absolutely can’t miss out on this. With this update, you get:

  • Access to lessons from the past 3 weeks
  • Access to every single new lesson that comes out
  • …and you can download them to your device for extra study!

When you log in to the App, simply tap on the “Newest Lessons” icon for all the latest and greatest lessons. Every time a lesson is published, you will find it here. High-quality Japanese audio and video lessons come out every week.

New update! Click here to download Innovative Language 101 for free!

Remember: Every new JapanesePod101 lesson is yours free. This a major benefit of the Free Lifetime Account. New lessons are open to everyone for 3 weeks after the publish date. High-quality Japanese audio and video lessons come out every week.

If you run into any bugs or issues with this new update, feel free to send us a quick email at mobileapps@innovativelanguage.com.

To new free Japanese lessons for life,

Team JapanesePod101

P.S. Want to unlock the entire JapanesePod101 learning system? That’s 370+ hours of lessons from Beginner to Advanced – that you can take on the go – exclusive Apps, Progress Tracking, Premium Study Tools, Feedback from Teachers and much more! Simply upgrade to Basic, Premium or Premium PLUS for more access.

Click here to upgrade to Basic, Premium or Premium PLUS!

New Feature! Stay Motivated With Personal Study Stats from My Report

Hello Listeners,

There’s a brand new feature out! But first, here’s a question…

How long have you been actively studying Japanese?

Why do we ask? Well, Einstein once said… “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

While most people quit, the smarter ones (or the stubborn ones) stick with Japanese long enough to break through and see progress.

And if you think about it, time and effort are the two things that’ll ultimately dictate how far your Japanese will go. Look at it like this…

  • Anyone with bigger muscles – they’ve spent more time at the gym than most.
  • Anyone that’s a great artist – they’ve spent more time on their craft.
  • Anyone that knows a ton of Japanese words – they’ve spent more time on picking up new vocabulary.
  • And anyone that’s a great Japanese speaker – they’ve spent more time speaking Japanese.

It’s all about time and effort.

And that’s why you can now track your time and effort at JapanesePod101 with a brand new feature, My Report. You can find it in “My Account” in the upper right corner of the JapanesePod101 site. Or, just click here to log in and access it!

Click here to access My Report!

Here’s what you need to know: My Report tracks your personal study stats, like…

  • Total Time Studied
  • Flashcards Studied
  • Lessons Completed

…and gives you the overall totals and breakdowns on a monthly and daily basis. That way, you’ll know exactly how much time and effort you need to put in.

Here are some cool things you can do with this:

1. Set small, achievable goals! Why? They’re easy! Achieving goals is motivating. And once you knock one out, just set a new one and start building progress over time!

  • Study 10 flashcards and 10 lessons a day.
  • Study for 30 minutes a day.
  • 30 hours of time spent on lessons as a monthly goal.
  • 50 lessons completed as a monthly goal.
  • 200 flashcards studied as a monthly goal.

2. Get an overview of your effort. Sometimes, you just need to step back and see the big picture for a motivation boost. How long have you been been studying Japanese? And how much effort have you put in?

3. Adjust your learning routines. Feel like you’re not making enough progress? Take a look at how much time you’ve spent! If your current routine isn’t working out for you, spend more time and study more lessons.

And most importantly, use it to track your time and effort. These are the 2 things that’ll dictate your Japanese learning success. As Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Let us know what you think of this new feature! You can find My Report in “My Account” in the upper right corner of JapanesePod101, or just click the link below.

Click here to access My Report!

Thanks for reading!
Team JapanesePod101

P.S. Extended for Golden Week! Get 28% OFF All Basic & Premium Plans!
It’s the Ready, Set, Speak Sale! Start mastering Japanese with effective Japanese lessons from real teachers. Get 28% OFF Basic or Premium and unlock 370+ hours of Japanese audio and video lessons, study tools, apps and more! That’s as low as $2.88/month to learn Japanese. But you must hurry! This extension expires May 4th, 2015.

Ends May 4th! Click here to learn Japanese with BIG 28% OFF discount!

Ends May 4th! Click here to learn Japanese with BIG 28% OFF discount!

Get 40% OFF with 3 of our Best Japanese Vocab Apps for the price of 1!

Click here for 40% OFF 3 of our BEST APPS!

Hello Listener,

Just one thing is standing between you and speaking and understanding more Japanese.

Japanese Words.

But how do you learn more? Do you dig through a dictionary and write down every new word?

Then memorize, memorize and memorize? That’ll take a long time.

Or you can 1) master 4,000+ must-know words, 2) make unlimited flashcards for new words, and 3) learn faster on your iPhone or iPad. How? With our New Japanese Vocab Bundle!

Get our 3 Best Japanese Vocab Apps for the price of 1! That’s 40% OFF the total $25.97 retail price and 3 unique ways to master more Japanese! Hurry, this quick bundle deal ends Thursday, November 13th, 2014!

Click here to get the Japanese Vocab Bundle for your iPhone or iPad!
(Looking for Android, Mac or Win 8 Apps? Scroll down to the bottom.)

Click here to get 40% OFF our Best Apps!

So, what’s this Japanese Vocab App Bundle exactly? You get 3 of our best Japanese vocab apps for the price of one, instantly. That’s 3 different ways to learn more Japanese words. The total price of all apps inside is $25.97. You get ‘em all for $15.99.

  • WordPower Japanese – Experts say you need 1,500 words for conversational fluency. You learn the Top 4,000 Words with WordPower fast with Easy Categories and Courses (Business, Food, School, etc.), Progress Tracking, Word Bank and Smart Flashcards. Retail price: $9.99
  • My Words Japanese – My Words gives you 10 words a day. Just 10. In a year, that’s 3,650+. Perfect if you’re low on time and want to learn at a slow, easy pace with guaranteed progress. Learn 10 words in a few minutes every day. Retail price: $9.99
  • Gengo Audio Flashcards – Learned a new word? Make a flashcard so you can come back and review. This App comes with 250+ words to start you off. And the best part? you can make unlimited flashcards. Add new words, your own picture and your own recording and then review later with quizzes. Retail price: $5.99


Ends Tomorrow! Click here to save 40%, get ALL 3 Apps and master Japanese vocab!

And if you own one of these Apps, get the Bundle for even less! For example, if you have WordPower, that’s $9.99 deducted from the Bundle price, meaning you pay ($16.99 – $9.99 =) just $7.00 to complete the Bundle.

You’re getting 3 Apps and 3 ways to master more Japanese for the price of 1.

  1. That’s 4,000+ must-know Japanese words you can master on your device!
  2. An easy-paced 10-words-a-day method, perfect for faster and slower learners alike.
  3. Unlimited flashcards for all the new Japanese words you’ll ever learn.

And Apps Help! You’re a dedicated student of Japanese. The more resources you conquer – the more practice you get – the better you become. Fact. Books, movies, flashcards, apps: it all helps. That extra inch of effort now becomes a mile of progress when you’re fluent.


Click here to get ALL 3 Japanese Apps at 40% OFF Instantly – just $15.99.

To your fluency,

Team JapanesePod101

P.S. Android, Mac, or Windows 8 User? Get WordPower at 40% OFF – just $5.99! Master 4,000+ Japanese words on your Android, Mac or Windows 8. That’s 4,000+ words you’ll have inside your head, so you’ll be speaking and understanding a ton more Japanese. Hurry! Ends tomorrow, November 13th, 2014!

Click here to get 40% OFF WordPower for Android, Mac or Windows 8!

New! Want to speak better Japanese? Get voice analysis from your own Teacher!

Hello Listener,

Every Japanese learner wants to better at Japanese and say everything they’d like to say…without mistakes.

But how can you get to that level of Japanese awesomeness?

You need feedback from an actual Japanese teacher. Someone to tell you…

  • “here’s how you fix your accent”
  • “don’t use that. This phrase sounds more natural”
  • …”here is how to fix your mistakes”

And now you can get speech analysis from your own Japanese teacher at JapanesePod101! How? We just released a brand new tool called Premium PLUS My Teacher!

New! Perfect Your Speaking with Premium PLUS My Teacher!

New! Want to speak better Japanese? Get voice analysis from your own Teacher!

Premium PLUS My Teacher, exclusively for Premium PLUS subscribers, gives you 1-on-1 access to a teacher. Just record your voice and send it to your teacher for feedback!

You can record anythinga self introduction, a speech, a shopping list – up to 2 minutes in length. Your teacher will listen and give you professional analysis and feedback on what you should improve within 1 business day. Your teacher can also send you a recording for you to use as a model!

Premium PLUS My Teacher lets you…

  • Perfect your speaking and pronunciation with voice analysis from your teacher
  • Send casual exchanges in Japanese or ask questions
  • Get overall advice on how to best learn Japanese
  • Contact your teacher on the site while you’re using JapanesePod101 lessons
  • Get 1-on-1 learning on the go with your mobile device via a Mobile Web App
  • Get detailed and visual feedback on your writing (messages are limited to 750 characters)
  • …And master Japanese even faster!

That’s the power of having your very own Japanese teacher!

Your teacher will give you personal attention and fix any Japanese problems you have. Imagine how fast your Japanese will improve when someone’s guiding you every step of the way!

My Teacher is for Premium PLUS subscribers only.

Want to upgrade to a Premium PLUS subscription? You get the best of both worlds – unlimited JapanesePod101 Premium access, which includes 2,090+ Audio & Video Lessons, PDF Lesson notes, Study Tools and more – plus, you get a teacher who creates a personalized assessment plan and guides you along the way.

We rarely discount this plan, but if you’d like to upgrade to Premium PLUS and take advantage of this new feature, here’s a quick 20% OFF. Hurry! This offer ends Wednesday, November 12th, 2014.

Click here to get your own Japanese teacher and save 20% on Premium PLUS!

To your fluency,
Team JapanesePod101

P.S. Want to learn Japanese with your own teacher and unlimited JapanesePod101 access?
Get the best of both worlds with Premium PLUS at 20% OFF! Unlock unlimited JapanesePod101 access, including 2,090+ Audio & Video Lessons, PDF Lesson notes, Study tools and more. Plus, you get a teacher who creates a personalized assessment plan and guides you along the way. This offer ends Wednesday, November 12th, 2014.

Click here to get your own Japanese teacher and save 20% on Premium PLUS!

New Premium PLUS Feature! 1-on-1 Japanese Learning with Your Own Teacher

Hello Listener,

Imagine having your very own JapanesePod101 teacher. They give you personal attention and fix any Japanese problem you’ll ever have. They can…

  • Correct your writing
  • Be a source of constant Japanese practice
  • Give you insider tips on what words sound more natural in Japanese
  • Correct your Japanese pronunciation (something most native speakers are too polite to do!)
  • Point out your weaknesses
  • Tell you how to best master Japanese

Access to your own Japanese teacher was already available in our Premium PLUS subscription, but mostly via email interaction.

Now, there’s a new Premium PLUS feature that gives you 1-on-1 instruction on the website or on the go via an App: Premium PLUS My Teacher (formerly titled Premium PLUS Messenger).

Get 1-on-1 Japanese learning with My Teacher!

What is it? It’s a new App exclusively for our Premium PLUS subscribers. You get 1-on-1 access to your teacher on the site or on the go, anytime. Contact them while you’re studying with JapanesePod101 lessons or for any Japanese problems you have.

When you log in, you’ll see a message open up with from your instructor. Or, look for the “My Teacher” option in the upper right hand corner of JapanesePod101, by “My Account.”

More specifically, you can….

  • Send casual exchanges in Japanese or ask questions
  • Get advice on how to best learn Japanese
  • Contact your teacher on the site while you’re using JapanesePod101 lessons
  • Get 1-on-1 learning on the go with your mobile device via a Mobile Web App
  • Have your them correct, cross out and add feedback to your writing inside My Teacher (Messages are limited to 750 characters)
  • …And more!

Want to send longer texts (over 750 characters) or send a recording of yourself? Simply send your teacher an email and they’ll fix any mistakes and provide crucial feedback.

That’s the power of learning with a native Japanese speaker.

They give you personal attention and fix any Japanese problem you have. Imagine how fast your Japanese will improve when someone’s guiding you every step of the way.

My Teacher is for Premium PLUS subscribers only.

Want to upgrade to a Premium PLUS subscription? You get the best of both worlds – unlimited JapanesePod101 Premium access, which includes 2,040+ Audio & Video Lessons, PDF Lesson notes, Study tools and more – plus, you get a teacher who creates a personalized learning plan and guides you along the way.

Click Here To Get 30% OFF Premium PLUS & A Free Audiobook!

To your fluency,

Team JapanesePod101

P.S. Get 30% OFF Premium or Premium PLUS & a FREE Audiobook!
300 Million Lessons downloaded and we couldn’t have done it without you! So, join the 300 Million Celebration! Get 30% OFF Premium or Premium PLUS AND a FREE Japanese Audiobook! Unlock our entire Japanese learning system and master Japanese for as low as $7.00/month! Ends this Friday, 10/3/2014!

Click here to get 30% OFF Premium or Premium PLUS & a FREE audiobook!

Click here to get 30% OFF Premium or Premium PLUS & a FREE audiobook!

Introducing the New JapanesePod101.com Dashboard!

Greetings from Team JapanesePod101!

We’re stopping by the blog today to tell you about an exciting new feature we’re slowly rolling out on the website. A few select users have been chosen to test drive the new Dashboard feature.

Log in to your account today to see if you’re one of them!

The new Dashboard aims to help you track your Japanese learning quickly and easily. We’ve produced a lot of lessons in our lifetime and while we pride ourselves on offering a wide variety of lessons to our users, we realized that it can been pretty overwhelming for some.

Where do I start? What level is best for me? What series do I move on to now?

These were common questions coming in from avid users like you, so we set out to solve these commonly asked questions, and the Dashboard was born!

We’ll of course continue to listen to our fans and tweak the Dashboard to provide the very best experience for everyone. If you have questions or feedback for us, send us an email here.

To help you get started, here are a few of the big changes:

  • Dashboard Home: The dashboard is now your homebase at JapanesePod101. Anything you need to know about your account and learning progress can be found right here. You’ll see:
    • Your learning progress
    • Recommended lesson alert
    • Your learning profile
    • Account information
    • Quick links to useful tools
  • My Courses: For any series, when you check a lesson complete, your progress will be updated on the Dashboard.
  • New Lesson Recommendation: To help new members get started quicker, we’ve created a recommended learning curriculum based on your level. These series were chosen by our teachers as the the best way to start with JapanesePod101.com.
  • JapanesePod101.com News: Be sure to check the news each time you log in for feature updates, amazing deals and more!
  • Quick Links: Of course, there’s more to our website than just the Dashboard. We’ve compiled a list of quick links to help you get to helpful site tools like Flashcards, My Word Bank and the Browse Lessons list.
  • Footer: Finally, we gave a facelift to our site footer because…well, we just felt like it! Just like before, you can learn all about JapanesePod101.com and parent company InnovativeLanguage.com from the links in our footer.
  • We hope you enjoy the brand new Dashboard! Stay tuned for more tweaks and updates to the site and head over to JapanesePod101.com to test out the new Dashboard beta.

    How to become fluent faster.

    It seems to us that studying through rote memorization is the best method for retention. While it works (to an extent), unless you encounter what you’ve memorized on a constant basis, you will forget it. After all, how much do you remember after you took that last test at school?

    Somehow, we’re under the impression that if we reread and repeat things enough times in our head, it will magically get stuck there. In a way, it’s the lazy and painful approach to studying. The difficulty lies in the fact that we’re introducing a new concept to our brain with nothing to relate it to.

    Do logarithms make sense to you? (let the non-math lovers answer please)

    The concept itself may have no relation to you or anything in your life. It’s too abstract and thus hard to remember. Think of it as placing a pebble into a big web – it will fall right through because it’s not connected to the web and has no relation to it.

    So, what do we do?
    We make the complex simple by associating it to something we already know.

    In other words, we make the abstract more tangible, and thus easier to understand. While this takes a bit of creativity, the time you spend on making associations and remembering them will be significantly less than the time you spend memorizing and returning to it when you forget it.

    1) Association is a fairly general term in terms of using it as a study method. There are many ways to utilize it, from using mind maps and acronyms, to drawing pictures and creating stories.

    You’ve probably ran into some already without realizing it.

    Take the acronym PEMDAS which stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, and Addition and Subtraction. Remembering those mathematical terms would be more challenging had we nothing to associate with, but since we all know the letters P, E, M, D, A, and S – we can make a connection between something simple and something complex.

    Mind you that this is a simple example that can be taken to complex concepts. You may need to stretch your imagination a bit to create a connection but as Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

    2) The Loci Method, in a sense, is association in practice.

    Say you have a list of 9 words to remember – first, think of a place you know well, such as your house, apartment, school, or work place. You know where all the rooms are in relation to each other. (Avoid using a place you’re not familiar with as it would be tough recall it.)

    Once you’ve decided on a place, say your home, and can visualize it, go ahead and place those words in different rooms, but associate unusual images with them – the more bizarre it is, the better you’ll remember it.

    If the word “orange” is on your list, replace the TV in your room with a big glowing orange. Once you’ve spread the words out across the rooms in specific places(it’s okay to place more than 1 word per room, as long as they’re in unique locations), imagine yourself going from word #1 to word#9 in that place.

    For example: 9 random words to remember: muffin-blaster, croissant, hair-gel, zombie, platypus, logarithm, snowball, snack-a-holic, orange.

    As I open the door to enter my apartment, there’s hairgel on the knob and it gets on my hand. I take off my croissant shaped shoes at the doorway, and proceed to the bathroom on the left. There’s a platypus surfing in my bathtub. I go to wash the gel off and in the mirror and see a zombie looking back at me! I walk out, towards the living room and there’s a big orange TV glowing in the center – my roommate must be home. I go to the kitchen and see that snack-a-holic raiding the fridge. There’s nothing left in the fridge except a snowball. As I walk out, I get hit in the head with a muffin – seem my roommate has gotten his hands on my muffin-blaster I ordered online. I enter my room, look out my window and there’s a tree log that has exceptional rhythm, dancing to salsa – a logarithm!

    The fact that you turn it into a story, associate bizarre images with it, and place the words into a familiar location reinforces those words several times over making memorization a lot easier.

    More so, the effectiveness lies in using a familiar location in which you organize the list of data. You know where your kitchen is in relation to your bedroom, bathroom, etc. and based on that you know which room contains which set of data.

    Take some time out and research learning strategies! Tell us what works for you!

    Learn Japanese with the New My Flashcards System (beta)

    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!

    dashboard.png

    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 study.

    create_a_new_deck_.png

    Front of Card Display: The new My Flashcards load fast and are easy to use. Test yourself with native audio recordings. When you’re ready for the answer, simply click on the card to flip it over.
    flaschard_1.png

    Back of Card Display: Learning sometimes isn’t as simple as just Right or Wrong. Our smart spaced repetition system will evaluate your progress from the three answer choices so you test more of what you need. Get extra review with sample sentences and audio.

    sample_setences_and_back_of_card.png

    My Stats: We track your progress in My Stats. Don’t just learn new words – master them! This chart will keep you motivated to master all the words in your deck!

    my_stats.png

    My Flashcards is still in beta mode, which means, we’re still working out some kinks. If you’re a Premium Member, head over to My Flashcards under My Tools to try them out. These flashcards are part of your Premium Subscription. Something not working? Send us a message at contactus@japanesepod101.com .

    Not a Premium Member? For a limited time only, get 1-Month of Premium Access to JapanesePod101.com for only $5 – that’s even cheaper than our regular priced Basic 1-Month Plan! Use coupon code FLASHCARDS at checkout to get Premium for $5.00. Hurry! This offer ends on June 30th, 2011!

    Rōmaji Support for Lesson Specific Questions

    Hi Everyone,

    We just rolled out optional rōmaji support for our Premium lesson specific grammar, content, and vocabulary questions. Premium members can now choose to have rōmaji displayed from the My Settings page. Here’s a quick video tutorial showing this new feature in action:

    Romaji support in questions

    We hope you enjoy this new feature! Send your feedback and comments to contactus@japanesepod101.com. We want to hear from you!

    Team JapanesePod101.com

    Learn Japanese on Twitter – mini lessons featuring Compound Verbs!

    Thanks for following us on Twitter! We hope you have been enjoying the mini lessons we’ve been updating everyday. Our next theme will be Compound Verbs, or 複合動詞 (fukugō dōshi) in Japanese.

    Over the next couple of weeks we will introduce you to a new Compound Verb everyday on Twitter.

    So what are Compound Verbs, you ask?

    Read the rest of this post »