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6 Annoying Ways Japanese Courses are Advertised — 15 Comments

  1. I like this article, I got duped like this once, it’s really bad experience and can probably ruin Japanese for alot of people. I can’t really recommend any course of action but to be more careful and look for fishy stuff in their advertising. I seriously recommend being careful with your money with language learning, look through the whole product and organisation. Spending a lot of money on a bad product is a very bad experience and almost ruined Japanese for me. Thankfully after implementing the advice here at JALUP I have gotten back on track.

    • It’s easy to fall into this advertising. I did once with a textbook way back that claimed only requiring 10 minutes a day of studying (foolish me).

  2. I guess the big thing for me is just honesty. If the marketing is honest and at the same time shows why a product is helpful, then I start listening. I think it’s okay to talk about the time, commitment and effort needed to use a tool to it’s fullest potential. I see that as being honest and I respect it.

  3. This is exactly what appealed to me about JALUP. No attempts to exaggerate the difficulty of the language or make it seem simple either. Just a clearly described method and honesty about the (enormous) amount of work required.

    2 years in: JALUP works exactly as described.

    • Thanks Jesper!

      I just try to give the advice that I would’ve wanted to hear when I was learning and thought I could be fluent in less than a year and was upset because I wasn’t.

    • Agree with Jesper. JALUP is working very well. Lots of hard work but it is hard to imagine a better way.

  4. It’s a shame that language learning has fallen into that kind of marketing. It’s the curse of the internet, it’s made language learning 1000000 times easier than in the past, but it you also have to deal with people trying to make a quick buck with the cheap ‘I learned Klingon in one week using this simple trick’ type schemes.

    Very few sites are honest about the amount of time and commitment it takes and that’s what drew me here in the first place.

    It’s just the truth doesn’t sound good in a marketing system. ‘Learn Japanese in 3-4+ years’ doesn’t have a nice ring to it, but if you know that going in, the journey will be a LOT smoother and you’ll lower your chance of burning out.

    I’m learning a 3rd language as well as Japanese and it’s been a super smooth process, despite being as hard as Japanese (Korean). Because I’m just taking what worked in my Japanese learning that I learnt from here (anki + immersion as the core studying method) it’s been a lot earlier than the first year or so learning Japanese where I was stumbling in the dark.

    So cheers to Adam for keeping it honest and also for continuing to help people learn Japanese the ‘hard’ way :)

    • I should try making a “Become fluent in Japanese in only 3-4 years!” ad and see what happens haha.

      And best of luck with your new Korean journey.

  5. Having worked with marketing before in my life, this type of stuff is really annoying. It’s the exact wrong way to go about advertising a language course, but well, we know some people just want to make a quick buck and nothing else. Don’t lie and don’t exaggerate stuff like that people, please. Before finding JALUP and some other resources that are really working for me, I’ve been fooled by one of the exaggerated marketing tactics from a certain famous japanese speaker with a website on his belt. Never again.

    Nowadays as an English teacher, this stuff is just insulting lol I spend most of my time trying to get into my students’ skull that they will never learn how to speak English if they just show up to class once a week and do 5 minutes of online studying everyday. It takes work, actual work and immersion, but I think people want everything so easy and so fast that a lot of businesses are simply afraid of telling the truth and losing money.

    Thanks for JALUP, honesty and good content really works as opposed to these silly tactics.

    • Yeah, the problem is that it makes money to sell like this, so places continue doing it. Like gym memberships, most people sign up with high ideals and expectations, spend the money, and then end up quitting (or never use their year long membership or product).

  6. It’s not exactly an advertisement but at the university I graduated in, the Japanese language courses in my Japanese studies program claims that the 21 units that will be taken in the said degree is designed to be “intensive” and assures that students will be able to converse in Japanese and reach N3 or something after the program.

    I used to believe that textbook learning, relying on your sensei (who was actually pretty awful in Japanese and couldn’t even demonstrate any basic ability of Japanese aside from…rereading the grammar point in the textbook? lol), and forcing output (aka skits in Japanese, write ‘essays’ in Japanese) was the key to achieving fluency. The 21 units = 3 years of Japanese classes was merely going through the Minna No Nihongo basic textbook (never even finished it). Anime/Manga isn’t “real Japanese” to that sensei and students who were interested in anime/manga should get out of her class because “you should take her class seriously.”

    I sound so bitter but I honestly wish I had learned about AJATT, JALUP, the input hypothesis, Anki, and the “idea of self-studying is possible” first! It’s pretty enlightening that a year of immersion+anki+fun is miles better than the 3 years of dogma lol. Not to say I’m fluent, but I enjoy Japanese way way better.

  7. Yes, I’ve fallen for Japanese in 10 minutes a day and learn Japanese while you drive your car. All useless and frustrating and made me give up Japanese years ago. But when I tried the Jalup Next, I loved it. I’m only 100 days in but it is addictive, fun, and I can’t believe how much I’ve learned and not gotten bored.

  8. I have to agree, not to mention that using movies anime Manga as resources has a more of a positive influence on your studying spirits as a whole because you study something you like and enjoy so you don’t lose your enthusiasm. As long as it’s real studying (set certain deadlines.. etc so that you don’t procrastinate)

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