Speak Japanese Fast

Speak Japanese Fast is a Japanese learning program with a twist. Unlike most Japanese teaching systems, the creator of this system applies techniques he learned from the works of memory expert, Harry Lorayne to the study of Japanese. In order to decide if this course is for you, you need to first know who Harry Lorayne is and what he teaches.

Harry Lorayne became famous as a magician before he became a well-known memory expert. One of the card tricks he was most famous for was the ability to memorize, in order, all the cards in a shuffled 52 card deck in seconds. He then went on to co-write The Memory Book with basketball legend, Jerry Lucas. The basic technique he teaches is word association.

The concept of word association is not difficult to understand. It is much easier to memorize a word if we can associate it with something else. An example of this is given on the Speak Japanese Fast homepage in a short video clip. The clip begins, “The Japanese word for hill is ’saka’” accompanied by a drawing of green hills. Then a cartoon drawing of a little boy playing soccer on the hill appears with the caption, “Imagine a small boy playing soccer (saka) on a hill.” Finally, you are assured that you will never forget that the Japanese word for hill is “saka.” It works.

You might ask yourself why you should buy Speak Japanese Fast when you might be better off purchasing The Memory Book. The reason is because word association works brilliantly, but you need to make the associations first. This program has already done that for you, so you can jump right into memorizing Japanese words fast, as promised.

The current (March 2010) price of Speak Japanese Fast is $49.95. Given the efficacy of the Harry Lorayne inspired teaching technique, it is safe to say that it’s worth the price as it is. The creator of the program also throws in Bullet Hiragana and Katagana programs and other free extras, so it is no doubt good value for the money if you use it as an adjunct to more comprehensive Japanese learning programs. As a stand-alone learning program, though, it may be too limited in scope.