Total beginner here. I tried using Human Japanese for a while, but it was very boring since the app is basically just a digital textbook. Are there any apps that do things like frequently having you speak words into the microphone to grade your pronunciation? Or ones that have some sort of little mini-games built into them?
I don’t mind things being more dull after I’m invested and willing to put in the work, but the idea of starting to learn a language by just reading pages and pages of text is not appealing.
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For sure! Definitely when you first start, keeping it fun is really critical to establishing the habit!
“Infinite Japanese” is a decently fun game that introduces you to a couple hundred words through a timed system – it also includes audio, text, and images which is good to ensure you’re getting a good variety of exposure. Here’s the Apple App Store [link](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/infinite-japanese/id1298380683).
There’s also [Japanese Language Quest](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/japanese-language-quest/id1492887921) – a student I’ve spoken with said he really likes this one, although I don’t have any other experience with it.
These are the only gamified apps I know of, although I’m sure there’s many more! Don’t be afraid to look for some content creators too on Insta/YouTube – I also think they’re good for starting out and for keeping people motivated!
RiceBurger Studios is one of my favorites – they make fun videos and short games on [YouTube](https://m.youtube.com/c/RiceBurgerStudios) and insta (@riceburgerstudios).
And @taka_nihongo_dojo (on insta only I think) does daily lives that are game show style and kinda fun!
Really hope this helps!! Good luck!!
Renshuu has a whole variety of games from Shiritori to Crosswords and other stuff. Plus, it’s very game-ified in that you earn experience and level your Kao-chan (your avatar). The majority of learning is done via quizzes/flash cards type of learning so it doesn’t go too deep into detail like a textbook might, but it’s a very handy resource!
Memrise has speaking tests along with short videos and such.
Did you try out the YuSpeak app? It has mini stories in which they make you chat with anime characters to learn Japanese.