Has anyone tried Yuta Aoki's premium beginner course?

The course seems appealing because it’s focused on teaching “native” speech versus “textbook” speech that would sound unnatural in actual Japanese conversation. It’s $88/month for fourth months, though. Do you think it’s worth it?

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Although I don’t know the details of the course, I don’t think it’s worth it because you could learn that kind of stuff for free with a language exchange partner. If you hit it off with that person, a real friendship could be fostered rather than engaging in a strictly professional relationship.

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Good point. I’ll just add that even if you can’t find a good exchange partner, for that price you could easily do two hour-long lessons a week every week with a community tutor on italki.

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Aside from the absurd price, anything that claims to do something special or teach you “natural” is usually garbage or no better than what else is out there. Also vague promises like that should be ignored because again, it’s just snake oil.

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Dannnng that’s steep. Unlesss you’ve got money to burn, no way it’s worth it.

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E I G H T Y E I G H T B U C K S A M O N T H ?

No, it’s not.

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Unless that man is coming to your house three times a week, shining your shoes, and kissing you good night, it ain’t worth it.

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Ah, good ol’ Yuta Aoki.

I was subscribed to his mailing list, received the invite and felt curious about it (not that I even considered to sign in, can’t really afford it). I googled a bit, checked some forums, saw a couple questions on Reddit about this, and I haven’t been able to find anyone claiming they took the course, either for good or for bad.

I particularly didn’t like the way he promoted the course on the terms of the urgency his emails create to signup to the course ASAP, “or who knows when I’ll open the course again” (spoiler alert: it will be after a few months).

So 88 bucks a month for some videos and access to a Facebook group? Nah, even less if you consider the material he’s been putting out on his free mailing list, which is mediocre and way bellow what he advertises. Wouldn’t expect anything different from the “premium” course.

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Trashing the textbooks and claiming to teach “native” speech is probably the snake oil of languages.
For all I care It seems like a random Japanese dude (AFAIK he is not a language instructor or anything) trying to rip off people.

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Yuta is a long-time Japanese language blogger and author. I don’t think he is trying to rip anyone off, so much as he is trying to make a living off of being Japanese. A small distinction, but there is a difference, IMO.

He would gain a lot more money if he just gave iTalki classes. I know the courses work as passive income, but I doubt he has a lot of people buying his program.

If the amount of people in his Facebook group for people who are in the course is anything to go by, he has made way more money than he should’ve, since he has virtually no expenses in making this.

Not only has he not updated any of it since 2016, it provides less information than Tae Kim and certainly Imabi, is more expensive than all of the Genki material, and he himself has no training in language teaching. So in that respect it doesn’t even amount to a Nihongo No Mori video.

Also making a living off of “being Japanese” sounds equally like ripping people off. I get my native corrections for free, and there are literally millions of Japanese people out there.

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You can find really good Italki tutors for $20 an hour and get 20(!) tailor made classes for the same money!

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+1 to all the replies.

I like to think of Japanese text books as equating to Art/drawing/painting.

First you learn the rules, like proportion, perspective, light/shadow etc. Then once you know the basics, you can break the rules for artistic expression.

With Japanese, you learn textbook Japanese to give you a rough guide of how the language works - and once you understand that you can branch out into real life speech, native material etc.

As other people have said, if you really need help with the basics, iTalki tutors are great.

Also just seen this is a resurrected thread! :sweat_smile: Statement still stands.

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Totally an accident. Was looking for grammar resource recommendations in the forums and i commented without thinking. It was very early AM for me…

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There’s always gonna be someone new this’ll be useful for :slight_smile:

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