Speak! Japanese, by Linguashop, is a Japanese learning program that tries to be an interactive learning resource but ends up just rehashing Japanese textbooks. The Speak! Japanese menu offers different modules that focus on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Even though there are audio clips to illustrate words, the lessons are given more or less in a textbook fashion, especially the grammar lessons. Most of Speak! Japanese isn’t especially engaging because of this.

Speak! Japanese does include a speech recognition system that allows you to practice pronunciation and get immediate feedback. The speech recognition isn’t quite as accurate as some of the higher-ranked programs, but it is still useful for gauging your progress.

One of the best, and most unique, parts of Speak! Japanese is the Stories section. This allows you to learn Japanese through actual stories and insert the appropriate words into the tale, meaning that you learn words and grammar in context.

Speak! Japanese is easy to use, but that’s mostly because it is a simple program. Additionally, there is no way to really practice conversations, except the ones you may see in the Stories section. There is a dictionary function in Speak! Japanese, but it isn’t as complete as the ones in other programs and doesn’t offer much help on the three Japanese alphabets.

The Speak! Japanese program is very basic, offering a good foundation to learn Japanese. But Speak! Japanese isn’t as comprehensive as most of the higher-ranking programs. If you want complete fluency, try one of the top 3.