道の歩き方
You have finished the kana, which means you can read. From here on everything is written in Japanese with no romaji, on purpose. Here is how this tool is built, and how to get the most out of it.
Michi is a spine, not the whole body
These lessons give you structure: the vocabulary, the grammar, the culture, and a story that ties it together. But no course on its own makes anyone fluent. Real Japanese comes from contact with real Japanese. Use Michi as the backbone, and hang hours of enjoyable input and output on it. The lessons tell you what you are ready for. The things below are where the language actually goes into your bones.
Beginner shows like Nihongo con Teppei give you hours of comprehensible listening. Put one on during a walk or a commute.
Vlogs, cooking, gaming, travel. Pick creators whose lives you actually find interesting and let the language ride along.
Manga carries you with pictures while you read. Graded readers and childrens books do the same with fewer unknowns.
Watch with Japanese subtitles once you can, English when you cannot. Rewatching a favorite is some of the best study there is.
Adopt a few songs and learn the lyrics. Music drills pronunciation and rhythm without ever feeling like drilling.
HelloTalk and Tandem put real people on the other end. One message a day, one voice note a week, is enough to start.
Built to be hard, not impossible
There is no romaji anywhere in this course, and there never will be. You read hiragana and katakana from the very first unit, because romaji is a crutch that quietly stops real reading from ever forming. It will feel slow at first. That slowness is the work happening, and it fades faster than you expect.
Every kanji shows its reading the first time you meet it, and you can tap any word to hear it spoken.
You never just memorize a shape. Each one comes with a small story that makes it stick.
Software checks that no word, kanji, or pattern ever appears before its lesson. You will never need a dictionary mid unit.
You learn each unit's words in Anki first, so during the grammar your brain is reading, not straining to recall.
Four moves, one order, every unit
The steps are always the same, so you always know what to do next. The vocabulary checkpoint is the important one: do not rush past it. It is the difference between a unit you finished and a unit you actually own.
Every unit opens with its words and kanji. You build the deck in Anki and let it mature to a 3 to 5 day interval before moving on, so the grammar lands on words you already own.
A handful of patterns, each shown inside the ongoing story, plus a culture note that makes the grammar make sense in Japan.
From N4 on, every unit sends you into real Japanese with a specific mission, then gets your mouth moving with ghost drills.
Typed practice with no penalty, then a JLPT-format quiz. Score 80% and the next unit unlocks. Nothing here is timed.
Twenty good minutes, every day
Consistency beats intensity by a wide margin. Twenty minutes every day will pass someone who studies for three hours once a week, every single time. A good day looks like this.
One step of your current unit, or a review of an old one. Small and daily beats long and rare.
Do your reviews every day. This is the one part of the routine that is not optional, because it is what makes everything else stick.
Fifteen minutes of something you enjoy in Japanese. Do not measure it or grade yourself. Let it wash over you.
One message on HelloTalk, or one line said aloud from the speaking drills. Producing a single sentence teaches more than reading ten.
Small units are not short units
The units look small, and that is on purpose, so that you are never overwhelmed by a wall of new material. But small does not mean fast. Let each unit's vocabulary settle in Anki before you move on, and go back to finished units now and then. Comprehension compounds: every word you truly own makes the next unit lighter, and by N4 you will be reading sentences that would have looked like a wall of symbols on your first day.
You are not learning alone
Maria, a new exchange student, learns alongside you from the very first line. Mr. Tanaka and Yuki walk the whole path with her, through Kyoto trips and karaoke nights and one very bad snowy morning. The story is not decoration. Grammar sticks to people and places far better than it sticks to rules, and by the end you will remember the te-form because of a phone call in a train station, not because of a chart.
Read a little, review daily, immerse for fun, speak a little, repeat. Now go meet Maria.