Lingoda Doesn’t Teach Japanese — What to Use Instead

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The short answer

Lingoda doesn’t offer Japanese. When I checked its official site on September 27, 2026, the course menu listed six options: German, French, English, Spanish, Business English and Italian. There was no Japanese course page, and the addresses you’d expect one to use returned “page not found.” If you came here hoping to find a hidden Japanese course, that’s the answer, and it’s worth checking Lingoda’s site yourself in case the lineup changes.

The more useful question is why you were looking. Most people who search for “Lingoda Japanese” want what Lingoda does well for its other languages: small live classes, a level-by-level curriculum, qualified teachers and a steady routine. None of those things are exclusive to Lingoda, and for Japanese you can put together something that covers most of them. It just takes two or three pieces instead of one subscription.

My short version: pair a live teacher with a structured course. For the live part, one-on-one tutors on italki or Preply are the most practical choice, and italki also runs Japanese group classes. For the structure, a course-based platform such as Nihoner fills the “what do I study next” gap. The rest of this article explains how each piece maps onto what Lingoda offers, and where the fit isn’t exact.

What Lingoda offers, and why people want it for Japanese

It helps to be specific about what you’re trying to replace. Based on Lingoda’s own pricing and course pages, as of September 27, 2026:

• Small live group classes. Lingoda describes its group classes as having 3–5 students, taught live online in 60-minute sessions, with private one-on-one classes available as well.
• A structured, level-based curriculum. Lingoda calls its curriculum CEFR-recognized, and each language page lists a level range (German and English run from A1 to C1, for example). Its FAQ says one level has 50 classes.
• Qualified teachers. Lingoda says its classes are led by certified, native-level teachers.
• Classes you book, around the clock. Lingoda says classes are available to book 24/7 and recommends booking about a week ahead.
• A subscription built on class credits. Plans are bundles of classes that renew every four weeks, with unused credits rolling over while the subscription is active. Prices depend on the language, the number of classes in the plan and any promotion running at the time, so check Lingoda’s pricing page for current figures.

Put together, that’s a package that removes a lot of decisions. You don’t choose materials, you don’t plan lessons, and you always know which class comes next. That’s the part that’s hardest to get for Japanese in one place, and it’s the part the rest of this guide focuses on.

How each piece maps to Japanese

Here’s the overview before the details. None of these is a one-to-one replacement, and the combination matters more than any single row.

What Lingoda gives you	Closest option for Japanese	How close it gets
Live teacher, speaking practice	One-on-one tutors on italki or Preply	Closer than a group class for speaking time; you choose the tutor
Small group classes	italki Group Classes and Group Courses in Japanese	Real group format; smaller selection and set by each teacher
Level-by-level curriculum	A course-based platform such as Nihoner, or a textbook your tutor follows	Structure without a live teacher, unless you combine it with lessons
A school running the whole program	Online courses from Japanese language schools	The closest to a full program; varies widely by school

One difference to expect: Lingoda organizes its courses by CEFR level. The full CEFR scale runs from A1 to C2, while Lingoda’s courses go up to C1 or below, depending on the language. Japanese materials more often use JLPT levels (N5 to N1), although some teachers label their classes with CEFR levels too. You don’t need to convert one into the other precisely. Knowing roughly where you are is enough to pick classes and materials.

Option 1: One-on-one tutors (italki and Preply)

If the main thing you wanted from Lingoda was a live teacher and regular speaking practice, a one-on-one tutor gets you more of it than a group class does. In a 60-minute class with four other students, you might speak for a small share of the hour. With a tutor, most of the lesson is yours.

The two platforms most learners compare work quite differently:

• italki is a marketplace where you buy credits and book individual lessons, with no subscription. Teachers are split into Professional Teachers and Community Tutors, and each sets their own prices. This is the closer match if you liked Lingoda’s flexibility but don’t want a recurring plan. More detail is in the italki review.
• Preply works on tutor-specific subscriptions that renew every 28 days. Your first lesson with a tutor is a paid trial of 25 or 50 minutes, and if the fit isn’t right, you can try a different tutor’s trial at a 100% discount, up to two times. Tutors set their own prices, and the ranges you’ll see quoted are commonly seen figures, not official rates. This is the closer match if you liked having a plan that keeps you showing up. The Preply review covers how it feels in practice.

What a tutor doesn’t give you automatically is Lingoda’s curriculum. Some tutors follow a textbook or their own course, and many will build lessons around your goals, but you’ll need to ask. A simple way to get closer to Lingoda’s structure is to pick a textbook or course level together in the first lesson and work through it in order. For a wider look at the options, including a few smaller platforms, see Best Online Japanese Tutors.

When you’re looking through tutor profiles, a few details tell you whether a tutor can give you Lingoda-style structure. Look for tutors who name the textbook or course they teach from, who describe how they handle beginners and level changes, and who mention homework or review between lessons. In the trial lesson, ask how they would plan your next ten lessons. A tutor who can answer that clearly is more likely to keep you moving forward than one who mainly offers free conversation, even if free conversation is exactly what you’ll want later on.

Option 2: A structured course (Nihoner)

The piece most learners underestimate is the curriculum. Lingoda’s big advantage is that the next step is always decided for you. Without that, it’s easy to spend lessons chatting pleasantly without moving up a level.

Nihoner is a browser-based Japanese platform built around more than 120 structured courses spanning JLPT N5 through N1 (as of October 2026), along with a dictionary, games, a reading library and a JLPT path that tracks what you’re still missing at each level. As of September 2026, the free plan includes 18 starter lessons and all 16 games, while the full course lessons need a paid plan. Premium was listed at $9.99 a month at an early-pricing discount when I checked on September 27, 2026, so check its pricing page for the current figure. The Nihoner review goes through how the courses and dictionary fit together.

The obvious gap is that a self-study course has no live teacher. That’s why I’d treat it as the curriculum half of the setup, not a replacement on its own. Work through the course between lessons, and bring what you studied into your tutoring sessions to practice out loud. That combination is the closest thing to what Lingoda does in a single package: structured material plus a live person checking that you can actually use it. If you’re comparing it with other apps, Best Japanese Learning Apps and Platforms of 2026 lays out how the main options differ.

Option 3: Group classes for Japanese

If the group format itself is what you liked, there are options, but they’re thinner than Lingoda’s.

italki runs Group Classes and Group Courses, and its group class listings on September 27, 2026 included Japanese classes. The ones I saw were labeled with levels such as A1, A2, B1 and B2, and were priced by each teacher (the listings I checked showed around $12 per class). Group Courses are a series of classes at set times over several weeks, which is closer to a Lingoda-style routine than one-off classes. Availability depends on which teachers are offering classes at the time, so the selection and times vary a lot. Check the current listings before building a routine around them.

Preply is built around one-on-one lessons. When I checked on September 27, 2026, I couldn’t confirm a group-class option for individual Japanese learners: the group-class page I found required logging in, and Preply’s public material on group classes was aimed at companies. If group classes matter to you, ask Preply directly or look at italki first.

One honest trade-off: group classes are good for listening to other learners, getting used to a live setting and keeping costs down, but you’ll speak less than in a one-on-one lesson. In my experience (a personal view, not a research finding), that trade-off matters more in Japanese than in many European languages, because learners often need a lot of repetition before sentence patterns come out naturally. If you can afford only one live format, a tutor usually gets you speaking faster.

Option 4: Online courses from Japanese language schools

If what you really want is a school running the whole program for you, the closest match is an online course from a Japanese language school. Many schools in Japan, and some elsewhere, offer online group or private courses with a set curriculum, placement testing and fixed class times. That fixed schedule is one difference from Lingoda, where you book the classes you want.

This site doesn’t recommend specific schools. Quality, class size, schedule and price vary a lot, and a school’s online program can change from term to term. If you look into this route, ask each school:

• How many students are in a class, and how long each class is
• Which textbook or curriculum they use, and how levels are decided
• What time zone the classes are scheduled in
• How cancellation and missed classes work
• Whether a trial class is available

An online course won’t give you a student visa or the immersion of studying in Japan, but it can give you the steady, structured schedule that Lingoda offers for its other languages. If you’re weighing a full-time school against tutoring more broadly, Japanese Language School vs Online Tutoring compares the two.

Putting it together: three setups

Most learners who wanted Lingoda end up with one of these combinations:

• Tutor plus structured course. One or two tutor lessons a week, plus a course such as Nihoner between lessons. This covers the live teacher and the curriculum, and it’s the setup I’d suggest to most people.
• Group classes plus a tutor. italki group classes for regular, lower-cost practice in a group, plus an occasional one-on-one lesson to fix specific problems. Good if you enjoy the group format and don’t mind a smaller selection.
• A school’s online course. The most complete replacement for Lingoda’s structure, at the cost of fixed times and more research up front.

To make the first setup concrete, here’s what a typical week can look like for a beginner. On most days, 20 to 30 minutes of the structured course: one lesson, plus review of the words and grammar it introduced. Once or twice a week, a tutor lesson where you use that week’s material out loud, ask about anything that didn’t make sense and get corrected on pronunciation. At the end of the week, a quick look at what you finished and what comes next. It’s less automatic than a single subscription, but it covers the same ground: new material, live practice and a clear next step.

If you move up a level and the setup starts to feel too easy, change one piece at a time. Swap in harder course material first, then adjust how you use tutor time, for example more free conversation or more reading aloud, rather than changing everything at once.

Whichever you choose, the habit matters more than the platform. As a native Japanese speaker who has watched many learners stall, I’d say the biggest risk isn’t picking the wrong service. It’s having no set next step, which is exactly what Lingoda solves for its other languages. Decide what you’ll study this week and when your next live session is, and you’ve recreated the most valuable part of it.

FAQ

Does Lingoda have plans to add Japanese?

I couldn’t find any announcement about a Japanese course when I checked Lingoda’s site on September 27, 2026. Lingoda’s language lineup can change, so its course page is the place to check.

What’s the cheapest way to get something like Lingoda for Japanese?

Combining a free or low-cost structured course with occasional live lessons is usually cheaper than frequent one-on-one tutoring. Group classes can also lower the cost per session. Exact prices change often and are set by each teacher on the tutor platforms, so compare current listings rather than relying on any single figure.

Is a group class or a one-on-one tutor better for Japanese?

For speaking practice, a one-on-one tutor usually gives you more time to talk. Group classes are useful for listening, routine and cost. If you have to choose one, choose based on what you’re most likely to keep doing every week.

Can I use Lingoda’s CEFR levels to choose Japanese materials?

Only roughly. Most Japanese materials are organized by JLPT level instead, and the two scales don’t line up exactly. Use them as a rough guide to where you are, not as an exact conversion.

Related reading

• Best Online Japanese Tutors
• italki vs Preply for Japanese: Which One Actually Gets You Speaking Faster?
• Nihoner Review: A Closer Look at Its Dictionary, Courses, and Games
• Best Japanese Learning Apps and Platforms of 2026