Can You Learn Japanese Without a Human Teacher? The Truth About AI and Apps

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.

Learn Japanese on Preply!

Preply is a very user-friendly language-learning platform, and I use it both as a tutor and as a student. I’m currently taking English, German, and Chinese lessons on Preply myself, so I can confidently recommend it from personal experience.

One of the things I like most about Preply is that it’s not a one-time booking system, but a subscription-based platform. Because you’ve already paid for lessons, it’s easier to stay motivated and think, “I’ve paid for it, so I should keep going!” (This actually helps a lot!)

At the beginning, you decide how many lessons you want to take per week. After that, you can book lessons on the days that suit your schedule, or you can set a fixed weekly lesson on the same day and time. You can also reschedule or cancel up to one day in advance, so it works well even for busy learners.

Preply also has a wide variety of teachers, including many professional tutors with qualifications and extensive experience, as well as friendly and affordable tutors for casual learners. Japanese tutors on Preply are generally very serious and dedicated, so most of them have excellent ratings (many are 5-star teachers!).

Find a tutor who matches your learning style, and enjoy studying Japanese!

If you book a trial lesson through this link, you’ll get 30% off.

Click here👇

Mai

I am a native Japanese tutor with over 1,500 lessons taught across multiple platforms.

I majored in English at university and graduated, and I have since returned to university to study linguistics more broadly.

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