Best for: Building a daily habit
Gamified language app with a Japanese course built on short daily lessons. Free with ads; the paid plan removes ads and adds extra practice features.
Erin's Challenge: free video series from the Japan Foundation following a student in Japan, with lessons on everyday phrases and culture.
GENKI: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese, published by The Japan Times. Two textbooks (Genki I and II) with matching workbooks take beginners through grammar, conversation, reading, writing and kanji. The official site has free extra resources and audio.
Beginner textbook series from 3A Corporation, written entirely in Japanese, with separate Translation & Grammar Notes books available in many languages. Widely used in language schools in Japan, and now in a third edition.
