Hi! I'm Shiho, a software engineer from Japan. My friend Bryce taught me how to code a while ago, so I thought I'd return the favour and help him learn Japanese - something he's been having trouble with for years.

Like a lot of Japanese learners, his study routine consisted of about a dozen different tools, books, and apps that he used regularly. Because each resource only covered a single aspect of the language, he needed to use a lot of them to cover everything.

Each resource teaches content in it's own order, and so there were a lot of gaps and problems that came up when trying to combine them. He would learn new vocabulary, but not understand any of their kanji. Learn a lot of verbs, but not the grammar to use them. And when he did learn grammar, it was always small and 'bite sized', so there was never any deeper understanding of the core concepts behind how it works.

After spending some time helping him learn Japanese, I wanted to build a better way. One resource that covers all areas of Japanese, and combines the best aspects from all the different tools, textbooks, and apps.

Here's a common situation you've probably found yourself in when using multiple resources together.

You're studying the grammar point [て-form of a verb + います] and you're given the example sentence '日本語を勉強しています' for you to look at as well. You don't know the vocabulary yet, but there's an English translation, so it isn't too bad.

A couple of weeks later you learn some new vocabulary and you come across the word '勉強する'. You don't recognise it, and you only know one of the kanji, but that's better than not knowing either of them, so you can't complain.

Later on you learn the kanji '強' and you recognise it from the new word you just learned. Wouldn't it have been nice to learn it before the word though? And wouldn't it be even better to learn the word '勉強する' before the grammar, so you could understand the example sentence used?

These situations are extremely common when using multiple resources together. It's not the end of the world, but it is frustrating and needlessly inefficient. There should be a better way.

It's not just an online course - it's everything you need to learn Japanese.

Building a single resource that covers all aspects of Japanese, cleanly integrates them all together, and still manages to be high quality is a lot of work. And it was. We've spent the better part of two years building Yomimono.

Most online courses are little more than a couple of hours of video. You'll be expected to pay hundreds of dollars for something you can work through in a weekend. Ours is different.

What we've managed to create is much more similar to an online textbook than it is to a regular course. It combines all of the great aspects of traditional textbooks such as their structure and depth, together with the features of modern day apps and tools such as interactive practice exercises and a spaced repetition system.

Here's what it's like...

What good is learning without the practice.

Hundreds of interactive practice exercises containing thousands of different questions help reinforce what you've learned through the lessons.

Every kanji, vocabulary, and grammar point has multiple practice exercises covering both Japanese-to-English and English-to-Japanese. Different types of questions such as multi-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and sentence-building provide you with the variety needed for practice to remain fun.

How many times have you finished a lesson, but have been unsure of whether or not you're ready to continue?

Every lesson in our curriculum has an associated lesson test, a series of questions designed to ensure that you fully understand the lesson and all of it's content. Giving you the perfect signal of when to move on, or when to stay for a bit longer.

Lesson tests are made even better by the addition of our spaced repetition system. This ensures that you'll be able to easily and efficiently retain what you've learned as you move through the curriculum.