Speak and Live Japanese
Like Duolingo, but for Speak and Live Japanese. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
240 levels across 11 sections, about 480 minutes end to end, roughly 96 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Survival Phrases for Your First Day, Ordering Food and Shopping, Cracking the Code: Reading Hiragana, Making Friends and Introducing Yourself, Navigating the City, The Second Alphabet: Katakana, Describing the World Around You, Action Time: Basic Verbs, The World of Kanji, Politeness and Social Rules, and How the Language Actually Works. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Speak and Live Japanese
- Ohayou is for morning use
- Otsukaresama desu acknowledges mutual hard work
- Konnichiwa is the midday/afternoon standard
- Sayonara implies a long or permanent parting in a professional context
- Konbanwa is used once the sun goes down
- Matching the correct greeting to the specific time of day
- Choosing the appropriate goodbye for a workplace setting
- Sayonara carries a sense of 'farewell' or long-term parting
- Konnichiwa functions as the default 'hello' for strangers
- Casual settings prefer 'Ja ne' or 'Mata ne'
- Shop interactions usually require a standard polite level
- Morning greetings come first
- Understanding the finality of Sayonara
- Evening greetings are the final transition before night
- Identifying the most versatile greeting for strangers and shops
- Adding gozaimasu makes the greeting polite enough for superiors
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Speak and Live Japanese the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Which phrase would you use to recognize a colleague's effort at the end of a shift?
Get it right to open this lesson and 239 more in the app.
Where Speak and Live Japanese takes you
Start speaking useful Japanese immediately while unlocking the secrets of the writing system. Go from ordering ramen to navigating Tokyo like a local pro.
- 1
Survival Phrases for Your First Day
- Saying Hello and Goodbye
- The Magic Word: Sumimasen
- Yes, No, and Maybe
- Essential Gestures and Bowing
- 2
Ordering Food and Shopping
- Pointing and Asking 'What is this?'
- Ordering 'One of These, Please'
- Numbers for Prices and Quantities
- Paying the Bill Without Stress
- Asking for the Bathroom
- 3
Cracking the Code: Reading Hiragana
- The First Five Sounds
- Building Words with K, S, and T
- The N, H, and M Rows
- Y, R, and W: The Final Stretch
- Double Consonants and Long Vowels
- Reading Signs in the Wild
- 4
Making Friends and Introducing Yourself
- The 'A is B' Sentence Pattern
- Talking About Your Hobbies
- Asking Others About Themselves
- 5
Navigating the City
- Asking 'Where is the Station?'
- Left, Right, and Straight Ahead
- Reading Train Maps and Platforms
- Buying Tickets and Using IC Cards
- 6
The Second Alphabet: Katakana
- Why Japanese Uses Foreign Words
- Reading Menu Items Like 'Coffee' and 'Cake'
- Writing Your Own Name
- Spotting Loanwords in Daily Life
- Tricky Similar Characters
- 7
Describing the World Around You
- Using Adjectives for Food and Weather
- The Difference Between 'Desu' and 'Arimasu'
- Talking About Your Family
- Colors and Shapes
- 8
Action Time: Basic Verbs
- Going, Coming, and Returning
- Eating, Drinking, and Seeing
- The 'Masu' Form for Politeness
- Making Plans for the Weekend
- Telling Time and Days of the Week
- 9
The World of Kanji
- How Pictures Became Characters
- Numbers and Basic Elements
- Reading Directions and Days
- The Secret of Radicals
- 10
Politeness and Social Rules
- When to Use Formal vs. Casual Speech
- Honorific Titles: San, Kun, and Chan
- The Art of Not Saying 'No' Directly
- 11
How the Language Actually Works
- The Logic of Particles (Wa, Ga, Wo)
- Subject-Object-Verb Order
- Why You Can Drop the Subject
- The History of the Three Writing Systems
- Regional Dialects: Tokyo vs. Osaka
11 sections · 48 units · 240 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Speak and Live Japanese is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Speak and Live Japanese today.
Download Tomo, search Speak and Live Japanese, and play your first lesson in under a minute.