Parents’ Guide– category –

The Japanese School in Abu Dhabi — アブダビ日本人学校, JSAD — charges AED 38,160 a year for Grades 1 to 9 in the 2026–27 school year, paid in three unequal terms of ...

The Japanese School of Brussels — ブラッセル日本人学校, The Japanese School of Brussels a.s.b.l. — charges €525 a month in tuition for the 2026–27 school ...

The Seoul Japanese School — officially the Japanese School in Seoul (ソウル日本人学校, 서울일본인학교) — charges ₩470,000 a month...

Madara Uchiha almost never raises his voice, and that calm is what makes his lines so chilling — and so good for learners. He speaks in slow, complete, slightly old-fashioned sentences, like a man who has had a hundred years to thi...

The Japanese School New Delhi — ニューデリー日本人学校, the only full-time Japanese school in north India — charges ₹31,000 a month in tuition for every ...

The Thai Japanese Association School charges 146,000 baht a year in tuition for the 2026–27 school year, paid in three term instalments of 58,400, 58,400 and 29,200 baht, plus a one-off entrance fee of 160,000 baht. The fees are th...

Here is the honest answer first: there is no official JLPT N5 kanji list. The organizers stopped publishing kanji, vocabulary and grammar lists when the test was revised in 2010. Every JLPT N5 kanji list you find online is a reconstructi...

Makima almost never raises her voice. She smiles, she speaks in perfectly polite Japanese, and somehow every sentence still sounds like a command. That makes her a wonderful teacher of one thing textbooks rarely explain: politeness and k...

The Hong Kong Japanese School — 香港日本人学校, which now calls itself the Japanese International School (Japanese Section) in English — charges HK$5,735 a month for a primary child i...

IB Japanese ab initio is the IB Diploma Programme course for genuine beginners in Japanese, and it is offered at Standard Level only. You are assessed three ways: Paper 1 (writing, 1 hour, 25%), Paper 2 (listening and reading, 1 hour 45 ...

Yuji Itadori is the heart of Jujutsu Kaisen: a cheerful high-school kid with ridiculous strength who keeps asking what it means to live, and to die, the right way. He also talks exactly like a real Japanese teenager — casual, contr...

Vegeta never just says “I.” He says “I, the prince of the Saiyans.” He never calls Goku “Goku” either — it is always カカロット, the Saiyan name Goku himself barely uses. That pride is written st...

L crouches on his chair, holds his phone with two fingers and eats cake for dinner — and yet, almost every sentence he speaks ends in polite です or ます. That contrast is the reason his lines are so good for learners. I teach Japa...

Izuku Midoriya starts My Hero Academia with no power at all, and he talks like it: polite, nervous, full of 僕 and 君, never the swaggering 俺 of his rival Bakugo. That makes Deku one of the best anime voices for a learner to copy. I tea...

The Taipei Japanese School (TJS) in Tianmu charges NT$10,200 a month for a primary pupil in the 2026–27 school year (NT$7,500 tuition plus a NT$2,700 facility-use fee), or NT$122,400 a year — roughly US$3,840. Junior high is ...

Maomao never raises her voice, and that is exactly why her lines are gold for learners. The Apothecary Diaries (薬屋のひとりごと, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) is one of the hottest anime right now, with a new season on air, and its heroine sp...

The GCSE Japanese kanji list is Appendix 4 of the Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Japanese specification (1JA0). It contains exactly 200 kanji: 76 for Foundation tier and a further 124 for Higher tier, so a Higher candidate is expected to kno...

The Jakarta Japanese School (JJS) in Bintaro charges Rp5,980,000 a month for a child in Grades 1 to 9 in the 2026–27 school year (Rp4,700,000 tuition plus a Rp1,280,000 facility fee), or Rp71,760,000 a year — roughly US$4,000...

Ichigo Kurosaki is a scowling high-school student with orange hair who ends up doing a Soul Reaper’s job, and almost every famous line he says is about one thing: protecting people. That makes his Japanese surprisingly easy to foll...

NCEA Japanese is assessed through four or five achievement standards at each level, roughly half internal and half external. In 2026, Level 1 Japanese has four standards worth 5 credits each (20 credits: two internals and two digital ext...

Most anime heroes talk like teenagers in a hurry. Kento Nanami talks like a tired office worker who still answers every email politely — and for a learner, that makes him one of the most useful characters in Jujutsu Kaisen. I teach...

If your teenager has fallen for Japan, the next search is usually a Japan exchange student program: a semester or a year living with a host family and going to a Japanese high school. Parents then ask the practical questions. Which organ...

The Singapore Japanese School — officially The Japanese School Singapore — charges S$817.50 a month for a primary child in the 2026 school year (tuition plus facility fee, GST included), or S$9,810 a year. Secondary is S$893....

Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage and Naruto’s father, is on screen for a surprisingly short time, yet almost every line he speaks is quoted by fans. The reason is simple: he talks like a kind, steady adult in a series full of sho...

Hisoka is the only anime character I know who ends his sentences with playing-card suits. In the Japanese manga of Hunter x Hunter, his speech bubbles finish with ♠ ♥ ♣ and ♦, and readers in Japan learn to “...

The Japanese School of Kuala Lumpur (JSKL) charges RM1,670 a month in tuition for an elementary child in the 2026 school year, rising to RM2,048 a month once the compulsory maintenance levy and PTA fee are added — plus RM9,000 at e...

Shikamaru Nara is the laziest genius in Naruto, and his favourite word is the most useful complaint in the Japanese language: めんどくせー, “what a drag.” I teach Japanese, and Shikamaru is my favourite character for one spec...

InuYasha is rude, stubborn and permanently grumpy — and almost every famous line he has is secretly about how much he cares. The rough voice wrapped around a soft meaning is exactly what makes his Japanese so good to study. I teach...

IB Japanese B is the IB Diploma Programme's language acquisition course for students who already have some Japanese. You can take it at Standard Level (SL, 150 recommended teaching hours) or Higher Level (HL, 240 hours, plus two Japanese...

Akaza, Upper Moon Three in Demon Slayer (鬼滅の刃), is the demon who fights Rengoku on the Mugen Train and keeps asking him the same question: won’t you become a demon too? He is a villain who talks like a martial artist, and his l...

The Vancouver Japanese Language School charges C$1,449 a year in 2026–27 for its three-hour Saturday morning classes for children in Grades 1 to 6 — Kinder, the heritage programme for children who speak Japanese at home, and ...

Obito Uchiha says the most quoted sentence in all of Naruto while he is still a crying, late-for-everything thirteen-year-old: breaking the rules makes you trash, but abandoning your friends makes you worse than trash. Years later, the s...

The AP Japanese exam (officially AP Japanese Language and Culture) is a fully digital test of about 1 hour and 50 minutes, taken in the Bluebook app. Starting with the May 2027 exam, it has two sections worth 50% each: Section I, Free Re...

Son Goku has been greeting fans with the same cheerful line for almost forty years, and his voice is one of the most recognisable in anime. It is also one of the strangest voices to learn Japanese from: Goku grew up alone in the mountain...

Sooner or later, a child learning Japanese asks for a Japanese pen pal: a real friend their own age in Japan to write to. It is a lovely idea, and it is exactly the right instinct. The questions parents type next are always practical: wh...

Mikasa Ackerman says far less than Eren, and almost every sentence she does say is either a promise, a thank-you or a warning. That makes her lines perfect for learners: short, calm and built from grammar you will use every week. I teach...

The Seattle Japanese Language School charges US$485 a semester for one child in 2026–27 — US$970 for the year — for 32 Saturday mornings of two hours each in the historic Nihon Go Gakko building near Seattle’s Chi...

If your child wants to learn to read Japanese, Hiragana Quest is one of the first apps you will be pointed to. The questions parents ask are always the same: is Hiragana Quest any good, is it free, is it suitable for a child, and what ha...

Shinobu Kocho smiles, speaks in perfect polite Japanese, and says the most cutting things in Demon Slayer. That gap is exactly why her lines are gold for learners: she shows that です and ます are about form, not about being nice. I teac...

Killua Zoldyck was raised to be an assassin, yet almost every line fans remember him for is about friendship. That contrast makes his Japanese surprisingly useful: he talks like a real twelve-year-old boy, full of contractions, dropped p...

Toronto Japanese Language School costs C$620 a year for a child who registers early in 2026–27. That is about a quarter of what a first year at the Toronto hoshuko costs, it is published to the dollar on the school's own website, a...

Shanks barely appears in One Piece, yet his handful of scenes carry more famous lines per minute than almost anyone in the series. He is the pirate who gave Luffy the straw hat, and he talks like a relaxed big brother: calm, short, a lit...

Zenitsu Agatsuma screams, cries, begs girls to marry him and faints in fear — yet, fast asleep, he cuts a demon down in a single flash of lightning. That split is what makes his lines so good for learners. The funny Zenitsu speaks ...

Look up Princeton Community Japanese Language School on Yelp, Sawyer or the Princeton visitor directory and you will be sent to 14 Moore Street in Princeton. No child has a lesson there. It is the school's office. Classes happen on Sunda...

Ken Kaneki starts Tokyo Ghoul as a quiet university student who loves novels, and his Japanese sounds like it: soft, polite, full of 僕 and trailing dots. By the end he sounds like somebody else. That change is a gift for learners, becau...