Our free Japanese playlist contains more than 11 hours of fun, educational material that will help your child start learning a foreign language at an early age. There isn’t any preparation work required, and you don’t need to know any Japanese yourself.
Why Learn Japanese?
The first decision homeschool parents must face when teaching foreign language studies is the problem of choosing which language to teach. As the creators of the Destination Method, we advocate that parents should prioritize teaching useful, marketable skills that are likely to improve their children’s future quality of life.
There are many good options
Many factors will influence which language(s) your child might find most useful in adulthood, so it is impossible to identify one specific language that all parents should teach. That having been said, some languages are more likely to be useful than others. Spanish is the dominate language within much of South America, and is by far the most commonly taught foreign language within American schools – although this doesn’t necessarily mean that homeschoolers should follow suite. The large number of dual Spanish-English speakers (many of whom grew up in dual-language homes) means that demand for new Spanish translators isn’t as high as one might expect. Meanwhile, Brazil is growing in importance, making Portuguese an increasingly desirable option. Of particular note, several nations in Asia are exerting far greater cultural impact throughout the rest of the world, including Japan, South Korea, China, and India. Arabic, German, French, and Swahili are also notable options with strong or growing business relationships with the English-speaking world.
Japanese is fun and useful
One of the most important factors that determines how well children learn a language is the frequency with which they use the language in their daily life. This makes Japanese a very appealing choice.
In addition to being an important economic power and a highly innovative nation, Japan is also the originator of a massive fraction of the entertainment consumed within the English-speaking world. Nintendo and Sony control a massive portion of the video game industry, and have also had some major successes in the movie industry as well. Some of the most popular television shows, especially among young people, are either Anime shows (that is, Japanese animation) or are adaptations of Anime. Walk into any bookstore, and you’ll likely see a massive, heavily trafficked Manga (that is, Japanese graphic novel) section.
Tell children to study a language so that they can hypothetically acquire a job that may-or-may-not benefit from knowledge of that language at some point in the distant future, and they won’t be very enthusiastic about it. Tell them to learn a language so that they can watch their favorite show in its original language, and they’ll be much more interested.
For this reason, we suggest that parents should seriously consider choosing Japanese as the focus of their child’s foreign language curriculum.
Our Playlist
Our free Japanese YouTube playlist contains everything you need for preschool-level foreign language studies. Most of the playlist consists of songs for young children, such as The Wheels on the Bus, Pat-A-Cake, and Old MacDonald Had a Farm. We have structured the playlist so that children will first hear the English version of the song, followed immediately by the Japanese version. In addition, the playlist also includes a few videos to explain some basic words (such as “yes”, “no”, and “please”) in Japanese, some videos that introduce the Hiragana alphabet, and a few other simple topics.
This approach allows children to learn in a fun, low-pressure environment that doesn’t feel like work. As the teacher, all you need to do is play the playlist. That’s it. There aren’t any tests, or practice activities, or anything of the sort. If you’d like to be a little more hands-on, try listening to the playlist a bit yourself, and using some of the words you hear around your children. Don’t push yourself or your children too far, though. The goal for preschool is simply to begin immersing children in the language. They may begin repeating some Japanese words themselves, but there’s no need to require that at this point. Young children are incredible at soaking up information, and whether they show it or not, you can be sure that they are learning from the experience.
The playlist is more than 11 hours. Play a little bit of it (15-20 minutes) every day or every couple of days. You should play through the entire playlist at least three times.
