Language Islands

You learn a language in moments, not in grammar tables. Language Islands teaches the Japanese people speak at home and around town: waking up, breakfast, the commute, small talk, the last order at the bar. Each island is one moment of the day, taught as 150 phrases in the podcast. This app puts every one of those phrases on a flashcard. Start with Waking Up, free. That is the full first island: 150 phrases covering alarms, coffee, who is in the bathroom, and getting out the door on time. Tap a card to flip it, then tell the app whether you knew the answer. It keeps score for every island, and when a round ends you can re-deal just the ones you missed. Every card shows the phrase four ways: English, kanji, kana and romaji. Once you can read the kana, switch the romaji off and make yourself work for it. A full hiragana and katakana chart sits one tap away for the moments a character still trips you up. One purchase gets you the complete Japanese set: 13 islands and 1,950 phrases, from Commuting to Work through Work Meetings, Evening Plans, Restaurant and Bar, and Grocery Shopping. When new Japanese islands are released, they are added to the set at no extra cost. More languages are on the way, each as its own complete set. There is an Apple Watch app too. It deals you the phrases you have not learned yet, so five minutes in a queue becomes a review session, phone in your pocket or left at home. A few things the app does not do. It does not need an account. It does not show ads. It does not collect anything: your progress lives on your device and nowhere else. And the podcast is one tap away on every screen, because the cards work best alongside the episodes, where every phrase is spoken aloud, English first, then natural spoken Japanese, then once more slowly. Learn the moment you are in. The rest of the day can wait.