Since I am very bad at managing my time and instead of learning Japanese I spend an unhealthy amount of time just hanging out in a lot of different Japanese learning communities on discord, I noticed that for each community there seems to be a very different base of learners with different methods and methodologies and it’s very interesting how each of them has their own unique flair with pros and cons.
For that reason, I thought why not just write a quick summary of my impressions and maybe it will help other learners choose which one suits them best. I will not be dropping invites or direct links since I don’t want to directly promote the communities or have this post come across as advertising, but all of these should be easily googlable on your own. If I don’t write about certain communities here it’s because either I am not aware of them, or because I don’t think they should be shared.
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## English-Japanese Language Exchange
This is probably the largest JP/EN language exchange community out there, and it’s the one that often gets linked in this subreddit even in the sidebar. Full disclosure, it’s my main community and I’m a member of the moderation team so my review of it can have some bias.
I think EJLX is probably the community with the largest amount of native speakers who regularly participate in it. It’s a great place if you want to practice a lot of natural spoken (or written) Japanese with other natives. The downside is that some of the most popular channels like the #just_hanging_out channels are a bit of a waste of time. The community is relatively well balanced in methodology and you can ask questions in the #japanese_questions channel and expect to get a pretty quick reply most of the time. It also has a very good #correct_me channel/forum where people post their written stuff and native speakers correct them (although it can be a bit slow outside of JP timezones).
**Who is this community good for?**
Join if you want to talk to native speakers and practice your output. Also great for asking Japanese-related questions.
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## 日本語と英語
This community is not particularly large but is really active with a lot of very helpful and friendly regulars. There are a few native speakers but not many. The community puts more focus on immersion and just enjoyable reading of Japanese content. There’s a few channels where people can ask questions about things they are reading that they are confused about. There is also a reading club where people post weekly updates on what they’ve been reading, you can even get a custom role if you participate.
**Who is this community good for?**
If you like to read/watch Japanese content and want to talk about it with other learners in a relaxed non-competitive environment and ask questions, this community is great for you.
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## The Moe Way
Among all the communities I’ve seen, this one feels like the one with the most proficient learners. It puts a very high focus on reading and consuming a lot of content. The members are very friendly although some of the discussion topics can be a bit mature (but not necessarily in a bad way). A lot of the methodology seems to rely on heavy use of tools and statistics-based approach to language learning. While it’s not enforced or required, a lot of the members are very specific in learning techniques like anki, yomichan, card mining, immersion statistics tracking, character count and reading speed, etc. They have custom roles for being able to pass vocabulary (and grammar) kotoba tests and while they don’t make it sound like those who do are better than others, there is a feeling of respect for those who passed a high difficulty rank.
They have bots to track how much immersion time (and “immersion points”) each member has and they have various clubs (light novels, manga, anime, etc) who do monthly activities for a chance at getting extra points. These points don’t really do much (you get custom roles) but it can help you if you like the competitive nature of being engaged.
**Who is this community good for?**
If you like dictionary diving, stat tracking, have a statistics-oriented mentality, have a bit of a (healthy) competitive mindset, and want to just consume Japanese media for multiple hours a day, this place might be your community.
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## Mainichi
I left this community some time ago (for no bad reason, don’t worry) but it’s a pretty nice community. It’s very relaxed and the members are very friendly. I get the impression that there’s not many true Japanese “learners”. It’s mostly a bunch of people who know Japanese and who hang out and talk about all kinds of stuff. There’s a channel for asking questions and a few native speakers are incredibly knowledgeable about some more obscure Japanese details and are very good at explaining them.
**Who is this community good for?**
If you are already at an intermediate+ level of Japanese and aren’t too worried about “learning Japanese” and just want to hang out with other people who speak Japanese (at varying levels) about all kinds of stuff, this place might be for you.
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## Refold
I think everyone knows the Refold methodology, at least in this sub it’s often talked about. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the server and its community. I personally think the way the Refold website lays out stuff for you to follow and learn Japanese is pretty good, so I got nothing necessarily against that. The community itself, however, can often feel a bit too much in their own little Refold-only world. They are very good at advising people about the Refold approach and guiding them to the stages of Japanese learning, however it can often become a pitfall as I consistently see a lot of beginners who get stuck on a very inflexible mentality of “Refold is the only way” and are too strict on themselves (especially for stuff like language “Stages” and what is “allowed” or not, like early outputting, etc). The server also is kinda hostile to asking clarification questions about the language (“What does this grammar mean?”). There are a few output channels but they are not very active, most of the server is in English.
**Who is this community good for?**
If you are a complete beginner and need your hand held to go through the stages of learning a language, and don’t want to get stuck in a traditional “classroom” or textbook path, Refold might be for you. It’s a great community if you want generic learning advice and just emotional support through the harsh landscape that is language learning.
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## Japanese Academy
This is probably one of the worst dunning-kruger servers out there. The average age of the members is pretty low (they have an age-based survey and most people are teenagers), and the overall skill level is also very low. I mostly just lurk in the questions channel but more often than not there’s people who ask the most basic (easily googlable) questions and consistently get wrong answers by other beginners. The server puts a heavy focus towards pretending to be a student in a Japanese class (as the name also implies) so you’ll often see stuff like “teachers” and “students” participating in classes or class-like timewaste activities (like doing exercises, group study, etc). I am not a fan of that so maybe I’m a bit biased with a harsh review, but that’s just how I see it.
**Who is this community good for?**
If you’re a teenager and are stuck with the idea that you need to use a textbook and take classes to learn a language, this might be the place for you. However I can’t guarantee you’ll actually learn Japanese there.
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## JP Classroom
I admit I’m not very active here and I mostly just lurk. From what I’ve seen this server is also very similar to the Japanese Academy one, as it is also very school-like. They also have things like “teachers” and “students” and do study-focused activities and events. I feel like the level is slightly higher than Japanese Academy and the questions people ask do receive better answers… however it still feels relatively low in overall Japanese level.
**Who is this community good for?**
Same as Japanese Academy, except you might actually learn a bit of Japanese here.
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That’s all. Hopefully this will be useful to somebody, and happy learning 🙂
10 comments
I’ve found Japanese Academy, Japanese Language Study Space and JP Classroom all extremely useful to my learning- I like to ask a lot of questions and I can go to either of the three and get an answer pretty quick and they always explain in detail and break things down in a way that can be easily understood. The people in all 3 are super nice and always very helpful! I’m also in a good French-language server called « Apprenons le japonais ! ».
Please review Kanji Cave (https://discord.gg/PufrV6uhAd) and Demonic Jargon Training (https://discord.com/invite/Z48Pb4dTA7) too
In Japanese Academy, from what I’ve seen, most questions were actually answered (maybe not immediately, but after a while at least) by one of the few competent members, so can’t say I share the experience of question always being answered wrongly by other beginners.
What I didn’t like about the server is that there’s no channel to talk about Japanese Learning in general. There’s #general where a lot of off topic stuff is discussed, and #japanese-only for talking in Japanese, but not necessarily about it. Only real channel is the #question channel, but that’s more for specific questions, not general talk.
>I get the impression that there’s not many true Japanese “learners”. It’s mostly a bunch of people who know Japanese and who hang out and talk about all kinds of stuff.
You can know Japanese and still be learning Japanese. The rabbit hole goes very deep. There’s several people studying for kanken there and we often have discussions about N2/N1/N0 grammar too.
What’s the bestest one when I got JLPT2 15 years ago and probably should go get level 1 at some point?
the Moe way is the best among all of them, followed by the First discord Server you mentioned.
djt is quite good assuming you can pass the entrance test.
Thanks for mentioning Mainichi! We haven’t become an eternal learning community like the other Discords, but as you said, it’s more of a social place for learners who’ve been around the block with Japanese. It’s been over 6 years since we started and a lot of regulars from year 1 are still around.
In the end, what matters are connections with people over shared interests. We have a bunch of folk living in Japan and many regulars have met each other on trips. That’s the sort of thing I’d like to keep going.
What would you say is good for someone trying to reclaim their language skills after trauma? I’m this awful mishmash of intermediate conversational reading, writing, speech, grammar, and vocabulary and just straight up missing the most basic speech construction like a small child.
(really sticking my neck out there with this candor btw, but it must be done)
The moe way is the best, most mature, with amazing resources, and full of people who actually learn Japanese seriously, and not pretend to/dream about/never get past hiragana.