Japanese Minimal Pairs Trainer

Are you learning Japanese? Are you overwhelmed by Japanese’s large number of different sounds? You’re not alone. Japanese has tons of sounds that are only slightly different, which is a huge problem for learners. How can you learn to hear the difference between “北「きた」” and “切った「きった」?” Or what about “エゴ” and “英語「えいご」??”

 

Our Japanese Minimal Pairs Trainer is specially built to help you tackle this difficult problem! The trainer carefully shows you dozens of sounds in Japanese when compared to another similar sound, training your active listening skills. Whether you’re a beginner or intermediate learner, you’ll find this deck useful!

What's included

  • Native audio with a neutral accent from Tokyo

  • Interactive audio to train your ears to hear the sounds

  • Example sentences to help you learn with context

  • 30-day money-back guarantee — you can return it for any reason

USD $9.99

(tax not included)
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About the deck

At Refold, we’re focused on teaching you to understand real Japanese, as it’s actually spoken. Unfortunately, Japanese has lots of weird features that make it hard to understand.

Why do you need to learn minimal pairs?

Every language has a set of sounds that it uses to make words. This is often called a “phonetic inventory” (if you want to be fancy). Words that only have one small difference in their pronunciation are called minimal pairs (for example, “箸「はし」” and “橋「はし」,” or “お祖母さん「おばあさん」” and “伯母さん「おばさん」”).

Speakers of a language can easily distinguish all the different sounds used in that language. After all, “お祖母さん” and “伯母さん” are different words!

But every language has a different set of sounds it considers to be “important.” So our brains learn to ignore the sounds that don’t matter. Which means that, if you want to learn another language, you have to retrain your brain to hear subtle differences between sounds, which might be incredibly easy (and important) to native speakers.

If you want to be able to understand and use Japanese easily and naturally, you need to be able to hear the difference between “蔓「つる」” and “釣る「つる」!”

Introducing the Japanese Minimal Pairs Trainer

Our Japanese Minimal Pairs Trainer is made especially to help you understand Japanese pronunciation as fast as possible.

We examined all the sounds that are used in Japanese and used our years of experience in linguistics, phonology, and Second Language education to build a simple, useful and comprehensible minimal pairs trainer.

How to learn Japanese Sounds

  • Study each of the minimal pairs.
  • Practice hearing the difference on your first try. Some are much harder than others.
  • Immerse in Japanese media content! You’ll need to expose yourself to the language to notice and reinforce the listening skills you’re building.
  • Now that you’ve gotten a grasp on the sounds of Japanese, everything will solidify in your head over time.
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The hardest part of learning a language is basic comprehension. Once you can understand enough to have fun, you'll never want to stop.

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Features of the deck

Ear Training

Test your ability to hear words, like a native can

Interactive Audio

Learn to hear the difference between sounds by comparing high quality recordings of each

Example Sentence

Learn everything in context, and remember it easier, thanks to unique example sentences, written and recorded by native speakers

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Is this deck right for me?

    This deck is most useful after you’ve already been learning for a little while. Especially if you find yourself struggling to hear the difference between very similar words. We built this deck specifically with more intermediate learners in mind, which is why there are no sentence translations or furigana, but a learner of every level can find it useful.

  • Which dialect/accent of Japanese is used in this deck?

    Standard Japanese. The speaker, Mochina (mochijapa), natively speaks the dialect from Tokyo.

  • Does this deck include all sounds and spellings in Japanese?

    Not all the sounds are included. We only included sounds and sound pairs that cause learners trouble when learning to differentiate the sounds. Most of the sounds are covered, however.

    Spellings are not included. If you want to learn how to read the complex Japanese language, check out our Japanese Reading Deck.

  • Are there any free resources I can use instead?

    There are some online if you search for “Japanese Minimal Pairs Training,” but they’re of varying quality. We were unhappy with the options available, especially since they’re not downloadable so that you can use the trainer in a way that works best for you. As far as we know, this is the only Anki deck with native audio for learning minimal pairs in Japanese.

  • I finished the deck, now what?

    Congrats! This is a single (but awesome) step in your Japanese journey. Now you have to go listen to the language. A lot. We recommend reading and listening at the same time so that you are more aware of spellings AND pronunciation.

    We also recommend that you continue to practice with the minimal pairs deck, making sure the information is fresh in your mind. Or, if you notice that a few of the pairs still give you trouble, review them or seek out more minimal pairs to practice with.

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