Most people who look for Japanese classes in London as a complete beginner are not really asking “where can I book a class?”. They are asking something quieter: am I going to be the one in the room who has no idea what is going on?
You will not be. Japanese is a very learnable language for English speakers in the early stages, as long as the first three months are structured properly. What sinks beginners is almost never ability. It is starting in the wrong order, learning in a way that cannot be sustained, or drifting for six months without ever finding out what level they are at.
This is what a sensible first three months looks like, written by a team of native Japanese teachers who run lessons in London. Use it as a checklist, whether you learn with us or with somebody else entirely.
What “complete beginner” actually means
In Japanese teaching, a complete beginner is someone who cannot yet read hiragana. That is a much lower bar than most people assume. If you know a handful of words from anime, or you can say arigatou and sumimasen, you are still a complete beginner, and that is completely normal.
It matters because the first thing a good class does is check where you actually are. Someone who already reads hiragana and someone starting from nothing need different first lessons, and a class that treats them identically wastes one of them.
Month 1: sounds, hiragana and survival phrases
The first month should give you three things.
The sound system
Japanese has a small, regular set of sounds, and almost all of them exist in English. The real work is in the things English does not do: long vowels, the small pause of the double consonant, and pitch. Get these right early and your accent stays clean for years. Get them wrong and they are very hard to unpick later.
Hiragana, all of it
Learning hiragana in the first few weeks is not optional, and it is the single decision that most separates learners who progress from learners who stall. Romaji feels faster for a fortnight and then quietly caps your ceiling: you cannot read a menu, a station sign or a textbook, and your pronunciation drifts towards English spelling.
Forty-six basic characters is a genuinely achievable target in two to three weeks at twenty minutes a day. We go into the order to learn the three writing systems in Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji: What to Learn First.
Phrases you can actually use
Greetings, self-introduction, ordering something, apologising, asking how much something costs. Not because you will be in Japan next week, but because using real sentences from lesson one is what keeps people coming back to lesson ten.
Month 2: katakana, core grammar and your first real conversations
The second month is where Japanese starts to feel like a system rather than a list.
- Katakana. Slightly harder than hiragana because the shapes are less distinctive, and enormously useful in real life, since so much food, coffee and travel vocabulary is written in it.
- Sentence structure. Subject, object, verb. Once this clicks, Japanese stops feeling backwards and starts feeling predictable.
- Particles. は, が, を, に, で. This is where a teacher earns their fee. Particles are simple to list and genuinely difficult to feel, and an app will not tell you why your sentence sounds odd.
- Verb forms. The polite ます form, present and past, positive and negative. Enough to describe a day.
- Numbers and counters. Prices, times, dates. Counters surprise everybody; start early and they stop being frightening.
By the end of month two a beginner who has kept up should be able to introduce themselves, describe what they did at the weekend in simple sentences, and read a hiragana and katakana menu slowly.
Month 3: the first kanji, reading, and choosing a direction
Month three is where classes diverge, and where knowing your goal starts to matter.
Everyone should begin kanji here, gently. Around a hundred characters, learned as whole words rather than as isolated symbols, is a realistic first target. The aim is not memorising a chart; it is being able to recognise 入口, 出口, 大人 and 円 in the wild.
Then the paths split:
- Exam-focused. If JLPT N5 is the target, month three is when you start shaping study around the exam format. See JLPT Preparation in London.
- Travel-focused. If a trip is coming, you shift towards the specific situations you will actually be in. That is a different syllabus, and a much shorter one. Our Travel Japanese sessions exist for this, and we look at whether a short block is enough in Is a Short Japanese Course Enough Before a Trip to Japan?
- Conversation-focused. If you simply want to talk, month three is when you increase speaking volume and accept making mistakes at speed.
Which kind of class suits a beginner in London?
All three formats work. They fail in different ways.
Group classes
Cheapest per hour, sociable, and the fixed timetable creates useful pressure. The risk for a beginner is pace: a class of ten moves at the average, so if particles take you an extra week you either fall behind quietly or sit through material you already have. Good for people who like company and can commit to a weekly slot.
Private lessons
More per hour, considerably fewer hours to the same point. The teacher can spend the whole of one lesson on the thing you have misunderstood and skip what you already know. For an absolute beginner this is the most efficient option, particularly with a native teacher who explains in English.
Online tutors and apps
Flexible and often cheap, but the quality range is wide and nobody is holding your syllabus. We compare this properly in Japanese Lessons in London vs Preply, italki and Superprof and in Learning Japanese Online from the UK.
If you are weighing up location and travel time as well as format, “Japanese Classes Near Me” in London goes through choosing by area.
How much time this actually takes
Be realistic, because an unrealistic plan is the main reason beginners quit.
- One lesson a week, 45 to 90 minutes.
- Twenty to thirty minutes on most days between lessons. Review, not new material.
- One longer session at the weekend if you can, for reading practice.
That is roughly three to four hours a week. Two lessons a week with no review between them is usually less effective than one lesson with it, because Japanese in the early stages is a memory problem more than a comprehension problem. We look at the longer arc in How Long Does It Take to Learn Japanese?
Five things we see beginners in London get wrong
- Staying on romaji. It feels efficient and it costs you months later.
- Collecting vocabulary without grammar. Five hundred nouns and no verb forms produces nothing you can say.
- Only studying passively. Watching, listening and swiping through an app feels like study. Producing sentences, out loud, badly, is study.
- Waiting to feel ready before speaking. You will not feel ready. Speak in week two.
- Not defining the goal. “Learn Japanese” has no finish line, so there is no way to notice progress, and unnoticed progress feels like failure.
What it costs to start
Our published prices, so you can plan a budget:
- Trial lesson: £24, 45 minutes, online, no conditions.
- Online private lessons: £40 for one, or £36 per lesson in a block of 10, £32 for 20, £28 for 30.
- In-person in London: £45 for one, £41 per lesson for 10, £37 for 20, £33 for 30.
- Pair lessons add £10 per lesson, which makes learning with a friend or partner noticeably cheaper each.
A realistic first three months at one lesson a week is around twelve lessons. Add a beginner textbook and a notebook and that is the whole outlay. If you would rather work alone with occasional guidance, our self-study support is a lighter option.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to learn hiragana before my first Japanese class?
No. A good beginner class starts there. If you happen to arrive already knowing it, you will simply start further along.
Is Japanese harder than French or Spanish for an English speaker?
The writing system takes longer, and that is the honest difference. Pronunciation is easier than French, and there are no genders, no plurals and no verb conjugation by person. Many beginners find the first three months more comfortable than they expected, with the difficulty arriving later.
How old is too old to start?
We teach adults across a wide age range and the pattern that predicts progress is consistency, not age.
Should I take classes in English or in Japanese?
At beginner level, explanations in English and practice in Japanese is the combination that works. Immersion-only teaching makes more sense once you have the foundations. This is one reason we teach with native Japanese teachers who are fluent in English, which we explain in Learning Japanese with a Native Japanese Teacher in London.
Can I do this while working full time?
Yes, at three to four hours a week. The people who struggle are usually the ones who planned for ten.
Where to start this week
If you want a structured, unhurried start with a native Japanese teacher who explains in English, our £24 trial lesson is 45 minutes online with no package attached. We will check where you are, show you how the first three months would be sequenced for your goal, and tell you honestly if a group class or a short travel-focused course would suit you better.
What a beginner week actually looks like
Abstract advice about “studying regularly” is easy to agree with and hard to act on. Here is a week that works for most people with a full-time job:
- Lesson day. 45 or 90 minutes with your teacher. Do nothing else that day; the lesson is the study.
- Day after the lesson. Fifteen minutes rewriting the new sentences from the lesson in your own words. This is the highest-value fifteen minutes of the week, because it catches misunderstandings while they are still fresh.
- Three ordinary days. Twenty minutes each: ten minutes of kana or kanji review, ten minutes of making sentences out loud. Standing in a kitchen counts.
- One weekend session. Thirty to forty minutes of reading something real, however short, plus your homework.
- One day off. Deliberately. A planned rest day is the reason the other six survive.
Notice how little of that is new material. Beginners consistently underestimate review and overestimate how much new grammar they can absorb.
Textbooks and resources for the first three months
You do not need many things. You need a few things you actually use.
- One main textbook, chosen with your teacher so the lessons and the book agree with each other. Two competing textbooks is worse than one.
- A kana chart somewhere you will see it daily, and a simple flashcard app for review.
- A notebook you write in by hand. Handwriting kana and kanji genuinely helps recall in a way typing does not, even if you never write Japanese again afterwards.
- A dictionary app with handwriting or camera lookup, which becomes essential the moment you start reading signs.
- Something you enjoy in Japanese, at any level, even if you understand almost none of it. Anime, music, a cooking channel. This is motivation, not study, and motivation is the scarce resource.
What you can safely skip in the first three months: kanji-writing practice books, JLPT preparation material unless you have booked an exam, and any resource that assumes you already read Japanese.
How to tell whether it is working
Progress in month two is real but almost invisible from the inside, which is why so many beginners quietly conclude they are bad at languages. Three checks that are more reliable than how you feel:
- Can you read a hiragana word without decoding character by character? Speed of recognition, not accuracy, is the marker.
- Can you make a sentence you were never taught? Recombining what you know is the actual skill.
- Do you notice Japanese around you? Catching a word in a film you have watched before means your ear is changing.
If all three are moving, you are on track, whatever the internal commentary says.
About Iroha Passport
Iroha Passport helps English speakers learn Japanese and plan their trips to Japan. Lessons are taught by native Japanese teachers living in London, in person or online.
By Iroha Passport