This paper reports a pilot study that examined the use of electronic mail and the World Wide Web for learning Japanese. Three college learners of Japanese at the intermediate to advanced levels and the researcher exchanged e-mail messages based on selected materials on the Web during a 15-week semester. Analyses of e-mail messages, interview transcripts, and responses to a questionnaire showed several possible advantages to learning Japanese with online assistance, such as autonomous learning and more opportunities to practice Japanese in authentic communication situations. On the other hand, such obstacles as difficulty in typing in Japanese and absence of nonverbal cues were also found. The paper concludes that the same properties of the Internet applications may cause both educational advantages and obstacles. Although such findings caution that Internet applications are not panaceas for problems that teachers and learners of Japanese often face, many educational advantages imply that the Internet applications can serve to enhance instruction and learning. Three appendixes contain a list of the URLs used for e-mail discussion in the study, the questionnaire, and interview questions. (Contains 27 references.) (SM)