Oh my goodness, I just found the BEST website for learning how to speak Japanese, called ” エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。/Erin’s Challenge! I Can Speak Japanese.” I might as well just stop blogging now, this site is so good. Do you all know about it, or am I the last one to discover it?
Erin’s Challenge is a free Japanese-learning website for beginners and more advanced students (perfect for those who will be visiting Japan as an exchange student!). It is made by the Japan Foundation (their website is worth a look as well). Their goal is to help people living overseas learn the Japanese language and learn about the culture too. The website has very helpful videos where “Erin”, a student from England, moves to Japan and slowly improves her Japanese. In addition to videos, there are manga, quizzes, and games to help you review what you have learned.
Things I love about this website: It is very easy to navigate, you can view the website in Japanese, English, or a bunch of other languages, the videos are high quality and the acting is great, the content is with the times and relevant, and it truly is helpful for both beginners and those who are mostly fluent! I also love that the actors are Japanese, so you can hear REAL Japanese pronunciation.
Don’t just take my word for it, please go visit エリンが挑戦！にほんごできます。 /Erin’s Challenge! I Can Speak Japanese. I plan to show the videos to my children, and use the site to improve my own Japanese as well. Please come back and let me know what you thought!
Here’s a video that shows some of the features on this site:
There’s also a separate website by the Japan Foundation, “Japanese in Anime & Manga” that teaches you about Japanese words and phrases that are used in manga. Some of you might be interested in that as well!
Hiragana Mama 
Yay I’m going to use this to help me practice. i’m watching the first video now and I like how you can have subtitles in both kanji and kana so I can practice reading too.
I like that feature too!
I didn’t know about this site! You are so good at discovering awesome sites and videos like this! . Thank you so much for sharing!
I think it’s perfect for your older children!
I love this program! I’m still waiting for Nila to get a little older to use it. Though, maybe now that she’s into Sailor Moon, she’s old enough, since Sailor Moon has a lot of classroom references. I tried a year ago or so, but she couldn’t relate to the older classroom setting.
However, a lot of my friends use this program! I really recommend it. It’s like a drama made for Japanese learners, even with its own manga (^_^).
I’m so glad I came across your blog. I’ve wanted to learn Japanese for the longest and I’ve finally got around to it. That website is so helpful. I’m definitely checking out the rest of your site too. I’m so excited. Thank you.
Thank you for your kind comments, Cynthia!
Great site, I use Memerise.com to learn Japanes but this one is super!
Thank you!
I’m so happy i found your blog! I found it via pinterest and i’ve been reading for at least 2 hours now! I found this post and i’m thrilled to go start using Erin’s Challenge! Are the kids still learning well?