Hello all, I’m wanting to study abroad summer 2025 and I’m currently looking at my options.
I’ve been studying Japanese for 2.5 years over here in the states on my own, I can read fluently, listening and speaking is a lot worse but I’ll have a lot more time this summer (2024) to get better and expect to be close to “fluent” within around a year. My main goals for study abroad is pretty much just to have a fun summer in a new country and be able to practice my Japanese and socialize with other foreign students.
I’m already halfway through my double major in CS and Linguistics batchelors here in the states and don’t care much for the “academic” aspect of a study abroad, simply put I’m fine with my US degree and probably don’t ever really want to work or live in Japan in my adult life anyways, so I don’t care about how academically prestigious the university is.
From what I’ve heard, some people didn’t like the university because it was in a rural area “without much to do”, and because the campus had too many English speakers to the point where it was hard to get better at Japanese.
The first criticism isn’t really a problem for me, I like rural nature places and probably prefer Akita over Tokyo or some other populated area. The second one is a huge red flag for me, because what I WOULD really like out of my study abroad would be a few weeks to really solidify my Japanese by talking with actual natives or at the least other international students who are fluent. I don’t want to spend a few K over the summer to be stuck in the Japanese forest talking to other English speakers taking classes that I don’t care about instead of being able to make money working back here while being able to actually practive Japanese at home.
Anyone have actual experience with learning there recently? Lots of the reviews or people I see talking about it are from several years ago. At the very least even if it may have to be proactive to avoid english speakers I’d be fine, I’ve just heard bad things about it on that front. Thanks