It took me such a long time to come around to accepting that online lessons are better than in-person lessons. Something about being human, when I practice a language I want to be in the same room as my teacher. Thanks to this, I put off studying (and teaching) online for a long time.

But, alas, I have seen the light.

I know what 87% of you are thinking: That's cool for you, Niko. But as for me, well, blah blah blah I don't wanna do online lessons.

Well I say to you, dear friend: If I can convince my parents to go to Thai food, then I have a pretty good chance of getting you to seriously consider online lessons.

Reasons that online lessons are better than in-person lessons:

• Accessibility: You don't have to go all the way to Japan! You can build boss ninja skills while sitting in your living room.
• Affordability: Not sure if you guys have noticed, but language schools are expensive. And they're even more expensive if you start taking into account the level of attention and practice you're actually getting (or not getting) in a group class. With online lessons, you get your language teacher's full attention. In-person lessons can also cost a lot in opportunity costs. For example, if you have to quit your job or not work for a few months in order to study abroad in Japan, then really you're paying the lesson and travel fees, plus the money you would have made if you'd kept your job. Conversely, online Japanese teachers tend to be really cheap. I think it's because they're excited to use their English while explaining Japanese to low-level students. However, others seem just genuinely interested in sharing their language and culture with others. Maybe that's why there are so many volunteer Japanese teaches available in Japan.
• Online dictionaries: You can look up words in online dictionaries while you're talking to your teacher, without interrupting the flow of the lesson. If you're really nervous, just try Google Translate or something. Yeah, the translation will be super awkward and full of mistakes, but it's your teacher's job to fix and explain that stuff anyways. Type English. Read Japanese (pretending it's coming from your brain). Then get corrected and learn lots of Japanese.
• Written clarification: You can have your teacher write down words that you can't catch so that you can study them later.
• Live-action proofreading: You can both write on online documents using Google Docs, Microsoft OneDrive, etc., simultaneously. For example, you could practice writing, and your teacher could write corrections as you're writing. So, the second you're finished, you get instant feedback.
• Recording tools: You can automatically record the audio from your lessons using tools like this one, and then you can listen to them over and over again as review. I've read that some teachers even use screen sharing using tools like WebEx, then send videos after. (I've never tried it though, because it costs money.)
• Fewer excuses: It's difficult to make excuses for flaking on online lessons. Rei and I experienced this when we took lessons in Bangkok in Fall 2014. She was studying English, and I was practicing translation with a Japanese teacher. We always made excuses to skip classes. It's raining. I'm tired. The school's so far away. I don't feel like taking a shower. I don't have enough time to go all the way to school and back today. Excuses, excuses. With online lessons, all you have to do is turn on your computer. You don't even need to turn on your webcam if you don't feel like taking a shower.
• Comfort: Taking a language lesson is scary. You feel insecure about your low level, uncomfortable that you can't communicate, all-around stressed! But it's not quite as scary if you're doing it from the comfort of your own home. You might even want to turn off your webcam, so that you can see your teacher, but they can't see you. I don't know why, but there's something about that combo that makes everything a little less intimidating.
• Quality: I have some experience teaching English both in-person for a company and online as a freelancer. I can say quite unequivocally that my online lessons are both cheaper and higher quality than the lessons I gave at language schools. At language schools, I had very little control over the lesson structure, because I had to adhere to the company's standards. Similarly, I could not provide my own materials. Whereas with online lessons, I choose and develop materials that are custom-tailored to my students' levels, goals, and interests. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with being someone's personal language coach. You have a vested interest in their success. And it causes you to go above and beyond.

By the way, my parents love Thai food now. And maybe—just maybe—you're a bit curious about taking online lessons.

Later in Phase #3, I'll go into details about how to prepare for your first online lesson, choose your teacher, and all of that good stuff. For now, though, all you need to do is browse your options, which are…

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italki

italki is quickly establishing itself as the online language school. They have about 25 billion students signed up online now.

Okay, maybe not that many. But look at all this social clout:

Is this real life?!

And look at this sleek homepage:

Anyways, yeah, it's a pretty viable option if you're looking to take online lessons. As of this moment, they appear to have around 30 professional Japanese teachers and around 90 community tutors italki.com:

From what I saw scrolling through their teachers, the average hourly rate for a lesson with a professional teacher is between $10-20. Pretty cheap, if you ask me. I charge like $25-30 for English lessons.

The cool thing about italki though is that there are so many community tutors, and the Japanese ones hardly charge any money at all. I found a bunch of teachers who are charging like $6-7 an hour! Say what!!!

I frequently write updates about italki on my site, as sometimes my readers take italki language challenges and we blog about it together. You can find these articles listed on this page: http://nihongoshark.com/tag/italki/

I don't teach on italki, though. I teach on this next school, because they have a lot of Japanese students (and speaking Japanese gives me a pretty solid edge over most other teachers)…

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Cafetalk

Cafetalk is an online school that mostly caters to Japanese students of English. You can see that their homepage looks a lot like italki:

Cafetalk is just ever so slightly more money than most lessons on italki, and I think that there are two reasons for this: (1) They take a larger cut from teachers' lessons and (2) Teachers work very hard to provide interesting, unique lessons.

The rad thing about Cafetalk, though, is that their company is growing rapidly in Japan. This means that there is a huge influx of Japanese teachers. Right now they have around 165. This is a significant number, considering that this company is much smaller than italki. Here are some examples of teachers they have:

The main way to browse Cafetalk is by lessons (as opposed to by tutors). Here are a handful of samples from the 400+ lessons available:

Don't you get kind of excited just looking at all that learning goodness? Or is that just nerds like me? And some of them are under $10 an hour! Boss!

By the way, I wrote an extremely detailed review of Cafetalk on my website: http://nihongoshark.com/cafetalk-review/. Details galore.

Personally, Cafetalk has always appealed to me more. But really, just go with whatever feels good to you. Find a type of lesson that you enjoy. Find a teacher that you look forward to meeting every week. And enjoy this rad journey.