Japanese Mastery Method Review

Here’s the deal. I’m only interested in bringing you guys the best of the best of Japanese tools, resources, and courses. I get a lot of requests from various program owners to include their products on this site. I know Japanese. I know language learning. So trust me. If a product makes it on to this site, it’s good. Period. Japanese Mastery Method is one of those rare gems. If you haven’t tried it and you are having trouble with Japanese, stop messing around and try it. At the time of this review they were giving a trial for $1. To keep it pure, I didn’t tell them I was reviewing, and didn’t ask to be let in. I spent the buck. So, here’s the deal.

Japanese Mastery Method is an online course for beginners. Volume 1 consists of fifty lessons that take roughly 30 minutes each to complete. Each lesson starts with a video that teaches you the new words needed for that lesson. Using a technique called Contextual Learning, they introduce the words in a way that forces your brain to discover the meaning on it’s own. This is important, (and works) because instead of being told the word, or showed the word (which you will quickly forget), they are presenting new words in the most natural way possible. This seems to be the only course that actually pays attention to how the human brain is designed to acquire new vocabulary. You hear the new word first, then you get it in context of your own language, which forces the brain to integrate the new words as part of your working vocabulary. Then they back it up further with a mnemonic called a ‘Power Phrases’, (OK so kind of a silly name, but a very powerful technique) Which is backing everything up with visual memory. Powerful stuff. It’s the manner in which new words are introduced which lets you memorize the words instantly and seemingly forever. It’s a very clever system.

The next videos in each lesson show you how to work with the words you’ve learned. This is the real engine of the course. They show you the super-literal meaning of each word, which let’s you quickly understand how and when to use the words correctly. This completely eliminates confusion (that most beginners face) of how, when, and where to use vocabulary correctly when speaking Japanese. Another very effective teaching technique, that I actually haven’t seen put to use properly until now.

Then toward the middle of the lesson they tackle the lesson’s Japanese grammar point through pattern recognition. Again, they don’t just explain it, or just present it and let you sort it out. They have you observe the grammar patterns and essentially absorb Japanese grammar rules. This is a huge short-cut to fluency because it cuts out one step when you are trying to speak. Meaning, you don’t get tripped up and stuck thinking about grammar. You just know what to say. And I assure you, this course will quickly give you speaking ability. When you speak English, you don’t get stuck thinking through rules, because you learned via patterns. Japanese native speakers learned their language via patterns. So basically, with S.L.T. and patterns, correctly using Japanese particles, and forming grammatically correct sentences becomes very simple.

What I also love is that the lead instructor is a native speaker of English. This perspective is very important. He clearly understands the difficulties that a beginner faces, and addresses them as they come up. Of course, all the material for practice is spoken by various native Japanese speakers. So you do get to hear a variety of voices which is again, what the human brain wants when learning language.

The core lessons are great. Then… (at the time of this review) they throw in the their down-loadable ON THE GO course, a Kanji reading bonus called Survival Kanji, Coaching via e-mail, and Street Japanese Reality Videos (very cool).

If you are headed to Japan and want to step off the plane speaking and understanding, or have been stuck with Japanese, and want to get un-stuck, definitely check it out. This will shave a year or two off the process. But don’t take my word for it. You need to do a couple of the lessons to really appreciate what this will do for your Japanese speaking ability.

Update: Jan 2013 – The $1 trial is back. Go here: Japanese Mastery Method