I started studying Japanese in an age when apps for studying Japanese were downright atrocious. Like, so bad. No worries, though. Your study journey will be much less strenuous than mine was.

The good thing about apps is that they're easily accessible, making them good for random bits of studying done in low quality time.

imi wa?

imi wa? is my favorite Japanese language learning app in the world (with the exception of Anki, because, well, that's not fair).

I'd like to give imi wa? my ★☆★Japanese Study App Awesomeness Award★☆★, which I just invented this very second.

Here's why:

Awesomeness Criteria #1 – It has a huge database of words.

Awesomeness Criteria #2 – It is really easy to save words that I look up onto vocab lists.

Awesomeness Criteria #3 – I can later take those vocab lists and use them to auto-generate Anki flashcards. In other words, it's relatively simple to use imi wa? as a bridge to memorizing long lists of vocabulary. That might sound technical and crazy, but it's actually just awesome, and I'll walk you through how to do it later in this guide.

Here is the link to imi wa? in the iTunes store.

As far as I know, the Google Play equivalent to this is IMI, which can be found here.

Anki

I wasn't even going to mention Anki, because I already wrote so much about it in the Vocab Prep section, and I'm going to mention it a lot in every phase of this guide. But, yeah, there's an app. It's a bit expensive if you have an iOS device, which is a bummer, but it's free if you're on a Droid device. Score!

So, anyways, download if you can. Here is the iTunes link. Here is the Google Play link.

I agree that $25 seems like a lot for a smartphone application, especially seeing how most apps don't cost any more than a few dollars, if anything.

However, I can unequivocally guarantee you that if you are serious about studying Japanese, then this will be worth the money.

As of this very second, I've logged 1,040 hours using Anki. 1,040!

Doing the math, that means that Anki has cost me under $0.03 per hour, or $0.0004 per minute. Perhaps you can see why I'd say it's worth the money. But, you know, we all have our own things that we do and do not like paying money for. My grandfather used to frequent two different dollar stores so that he “didn't get screwed," but then he'd go and blow hundreds of dollars at the horse races. Go figure.

Reference Prep Complete! Congratulations! Let's keep this momentum going…

Phase #1 Progress

Completed:

• Mindset Prep
• Vocab Prep
• Listening Prep
• Reference Prep

Pending:

• Grammar Prep
• Speaking Prep