6 Annoying Ways Japanese Courses are Advertised
I try not to judge other language courses or websites. Even the ones I completely disagree with and have seen people consistently not do well with. People like different things, and different methods click, so try for yourself and see what matches you. What I will judge however are the annoying ways many major language learning sites advertise learning Japanese.
I won’t name any specific sites, but you’ve seen this all before. Let’s get into what needs to be stopped.
6. “Japanese is the most difficult language in the world and is nearly impossible to learn!”
Regardless of whether Japanese is truly the most difficult, it is not the place of a site to demonize the language as impossible. Yes, Japanese is difficult to learn. A lot of the difficulty comes with the time, motivation and discipline required to continue over the years. But you can learn it. You can enjoy learning it. It’s a far cry from impossible.
5. “Look at these examples of how Japanese is ridiculously impossible!”
There are annoying parts of learning Japanese. For example, learning all the honorifics in Japanese and being able to produce them is hard, because you most likely aren’t in situations where you’ll ever need to use them (unless you work for a Japanese company or have Japanese clients). However, just because Japanese has some difficult parts, doesn’t mean the whole language is like that.
I once made two posts for fun about the 100 ways to say I or you. Most of these uses are old or ridiculously situation specific, and you only need to understand a small handful.
So when advertisements state there are hundreds or thousands of ways to say something, it is a major exaggeration. It reminds me of the old myth of the 1,000 ways to say snow in eskimo. (Hint: it’s not true).
4. “Japanese is impossible, but we have finally cracked it!”
While the advertising originally claimed how Japanese was next to impossible, they have finally found a way to make it easier. This is the turning point for the world. Now people can actually learn Japanese.
3. “Our solution is scientifically proven”
If you are going to quote science for language learning, you have to show information backing it up. You need long term comparative studies, with thousands of participants, over many years.
2. “Our solution is one of a kind and has never been done before”
Japanese studying has been around for a while. New tools take the good from other tools and make them better. New tools take different approaches. There are unique aspects that new courses and sites come out with. But you better actually talk about them. Don’t talk about how unique you are for using SRS, or teaching kanji instead of romaji, or using information building blocks (i+1). This isn’t new.
1. “You only have to study 5 or 10 minutes a day!”
This one kills me till this day. It’s insane. No one thinks that they are going to master Japanese in this amount of time. After all the time spent telling us how difficult Japanese is, you are going to tell me that in 30-60 hours a year (5-10 minutes x 365 days), you are going to learn Japanese? That’s just insulting.
Stop this type of advertising
There are millions of people who really want to learn Japanese out there in the world. If you offer a good program, that actually works, people will use it. Then they will tell others. You’ll make money while doing something good.
Don’t spread unrealistic myths, exaggerations, and promises. If you want to get people’s attention, focus on the fun. Focus on the wonder. Focus on their study reasons. Focus on what they will be able to do one day.
What bothers you about Japanese language learning advertising?
Has anything particularly annoyed you that you wish language learning companies would stop doing?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
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).
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.
Honesty is key, but exaggeration is everywhere.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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)
Does “literally any advertisement for Rosetta Stone” count?