Online Japanese Beginner Course (All 12 lessons） (Udemy.com)

Attain Online Japanese Language School, a Japanese e-learning company, built this as a first step into the language. It runs about 5.8 hours and centers on hiragana and katakana: pronunciation, writing, voiced sounds, long vowels, double consonants and contracted sounds, plus a few simple greetings and everyday phrases. A printable PDF textbook comes with it for writing practice. The teaching is in Japanese with English subtitles, so it is aimed at people who start from zero and read English.

Reviewers like the clear structure and the practice blocks after every few characters. One student who had studied Japanese in college says the course taught accent and intonation points that class skipped. Another likes that the teacher speaks Japanese the whole time, which trains the ear. The complaints are small but real. Two reviewers want more practice, one of them asking for a full chapter of drills. One found exercises using hiragana that had not been taught yet, and another says the textbook treats kanji as if it were not there. One three-star reviewer felt it was mostly about writing letters.

The course was last updated in 2022, which matters little for a writing system. With more than 6,000 reviews and a 4.8 rating, students are clearly happy with it as a starting point. Treat it as a kana primer, not a full beginner course. It suits anyone who wants to read and write the two syllabaries before moving on. Once the characters feel familiar, you will need a separate course for grammar and vocabulary.