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Learning platform iKnow helps Japanese people study up for Ad-tech Tokyo

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We recently wrote about a new education app called Chojimaku which uses subtitled movies to teach English. Another well-established learning platform from Japan is iKnow, which has 1.2 million registered users. It was recently announced that the service has added new content to its platform, a very specific course that lets attendees prepare for Ad:tech Tokyo, taking place next week. Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals. The new content is titled ‘Mastering English for the marketing and advertisement industry in a week’. By making the reason for learning very clear, it motivates learners and to better prepare for a specific event or occasion. You need to sign up for the service to use the content, but it is provided for free. There are over 100 marketing-related words available to learn, and lessons to enhance your listening ability for this topic. Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals. So it is only natural that in the Japanese market, there have always been services in this field, including Rarejob which recently got funded. What differentiates iKnow from other services is that its courses are based…

iKnow!

We recently wrote about a new education app called Chojimaku which uses subtitled movies to teach English. Another well-established learning platform from Japan is iKnow, which has 1.2 million registered users. It was recently announced that the service has added new content to its platform, a very specific course that lets attendees prepare for Ad:tech Tokyo, taking place next week.

Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals.

The new content is titled ‘Mastering English for the marketing and advertisement industry in a week’. By making the reason for learning very clear, it motivates learners and to better prepare for a specific event or occasion. You need to sign up for the service to use the content, but it is provided for free.

There are over 100 marketing-related words available to learn, and lessons to enhance your listening ability for this topic.

Studying English is one of the top priorities for many Japanese people, especially working professionals. So it is only natural that in the Japanese market, there have always been services in this field, including Rarejob which recently got funded. What differentiates iKnow from other services is that its courses are based on a spaced-repetition system with a strong focus on obtaining more vocabulary.

The company behind iKnow is Cerego, founded way back in the year 2000. The company provides online language learning services to consumers as well as enterprises inside and outside of Japan. There are over 100 companies that have deployed the learning platform, including Softbank group with its 20,000+ employees.

To see how iKnow works, you can check out the video below.

Japan’s top education app teaches English with ‘Super Subtitles’

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We’ve written about a number of services in the past that help Japanese people study English. For example, language learning startup Rarejob raised $3.3 million this year to help continue its efforts in providing English lessons over Skype. Choujimaku is a popular English learning software, published by Source Next Corporation in Japan. It helps students learn English by watching movies, referring to English and Japanese subtitles as they go (hence the name, which translates as ‘Super Subtitles’). Back in 2011 the company moved into the app space with its Choujimaku movie app for iOS. And thanks to a new promotional campaign, the app is now number one in the education category in the Japanese App Store. Movies are currently priced at ¥1200 (or about $12), which is a promotional discount from the regular ¥1800. But like much online media in Japan, the movies are still painfully overpriced in my view, even with the added value of bilingual subtitles and the useful dictionary. That’s about the same price as an evening at the cinema, or two months worth of Hulu Plus (which in Japan includes subtitled movies and TV). But nevertheless, it might hit a sweet spot for busy folks who…

choujimaku

We’ve written about a number of services in the past that help Japanese people study English. For example, language learning startup Rarejob raised $3.3 million this year to help continue its efforts in providing English lessons over Skype.

Choujimaku is a popular English learning software, published by Source Next Corporation in Japan. It helps students learn English by watching movies, referring to English and Japanese subtitles as they go (hence the name, which translates as ‘Super Subtitles’). Back in 2011 the company moved into the app space with its Choujimaku movie app for iOS. And thanks to a new promotional campaign, the app is now number one in the education category in the Japanese App Store.

choujimaki

Movies are currently priced at ¥1200 (or about $12), which is a promotional discount from the regular ¥1800. But like much online media in Japan, the movies are still painfully overpriced in my view, even with the added value of bilingual subtitles and the useful dictionary. That’s about the same price as an evening at the cinema, or two months worth of Hulu Plus (which in Japan includes subtitled movies and TV).

But nevertheless, it might hit a sweet spot for busy folks who don’t have time to mess around with organizing their own study through movies. The controls are pretty handy with the ability to toggle either language off or on. There’s also a dictionary function that lets users dig deeper and find out the meaning of individual words.

If you’d like to check it out, you can pick it up over on the App Store as a free download. There’s a sample movie if you’d like to try it out before moving on to the 200+ in-app movie purchases available.