Hi! I’m Mai-sensei, a native Japanese tutor.
Today, I want to talk honestly about a question many learners ask:
Can you master Japanese without learning from a real, human teacher?
Short answer
It’s extremely difficult.
At the current stage, AI-generated Japanese is still imperfect, so I strongly recommend speaking with a native Japanese speaker at some point in your learning journey.
① Can you study Japanese with AI alone?
AI can certainly help, but studying only with AI is risky.
Many example sentences produced by AI, especially spoken and casual Japanese, still contain mistakes.
These errors are often subtle, which makes them even more dangerous for learners. If you memorize unnatural or incorrect Japanese, it becomes very hard to fix later.
AI is useful as a tool, not as your final authority.
② What about apps like Duolingo?
Most of my students actually started learning Japanese through Duolingo, so I’m very familiar with its strengths and weaknesses.
Here are the main issues I see:
- Many words taught early are not the words beginners should prioritize
- Kanji readings are frequently incorrect (this is a serious problem)
- Intonation is often unnatural or wrong
Japanese is a language where intonation can change meaning, so this last point is especially important.
Intonation is crucial in Japanese
As mentioned above, Japanese is a language where intonation affects meaning.
Even if a sentence is grammatically correct, incorrect intonation can make it sound unnatural, confusing, or even change what it means.
I personally use paid AI voice services for creative projects, and even the AI voices currently considered “top quality” still struggle with Japanese intonation.
This shows how difficult Japanese pitch patterns truly are.
Why do these problems happen?
There are several reasons:
- Compared to English, Japanese has far less training data available for AI
- Japanese relies heavily on context, which AI still struggles to interpret correctly
- Pitch accent patterns vary by word and region, and are not fully standardized
- Written Japanese and spoken Japanese are very different, and AI often mixes them unnaturally
Because of these factors, AI accuracy in Japanese is still far from perfect.
Summary
Because of all this, I recommend the following approach:
- Use AI as a supplementary tool, not your main teacher
- Always have access to a native Japanese tutor who can confirm whether what you learned is correct
- Practice real conversation with a human who can hear your pronunciation, intonation, and natural flow
AI is powerful, but language is human.
My lessons are available on Preply ↓
Please click the Preply logo below, and search for my tutor name: “Mai B.”
If you book a trial lesson through this link, you’ll get 30% off.
At the moment, I’m welcoming students who would like to study Japanese on a long-term basis (minimum 1 month).
For this reason, I’m not able to offer one-time lessons.
Thank you so much for your understanding. (On Preply, tutors are not paid for the first trial lesson…😭)
Click here👇
