Hi all! I’m going to be studying at a Japanese university in Tokyo for student exchange in the spring semester (April-July). I plan to arrive a bit early to get settled in. Of course, some of my key goals for this exchange is to make Japanese friends and improve my fluency in the language.
So background: I’ve never studied Japanese formally before. It’s always been a casual side hobby. I would say reading is my strongest, followed by my listening and speaking. My speaking is disproportionately strong compared to my reading and listening. My listening comprehension is also surprisingly strong and I can understand a lot of daily conversation (and therefore get by).
But, since I never formally studied the language, my grasp of the grammar and language conventions is minimal. I can express basic ideas but likely with tons of weird grammar mistakes. How I went about learning the language was through a lot of immersion – after I learnt hiragana I went into consuming native material and slowly picked up things from there.
I want to be able to improve my Japanese so that when I’m over there I can:
– Talk to people easily and make friends.
– Not stuff up keigo in front of people I need to use keigo with.
– Handle more formal business situations by myself.
I am also thinking of enrolling in some sort of language school, especially for the first month or so while I don’t have uni classes, so that I can get things polished up. Any recommendations in the Tokyo area? I am so terrified of mixing up keigo and tameguchi since most of my conversation practice here is with people my own age in casual settings.
And let me know if there’s any further study I can do myself to polish up some of my Japanese as well before I get there!
1 comment
1. Don’t expect to make much progress in only 3 months.
2. Don’t expect to make many Japanese friends.
3. Don’t hang out with the foreigner group.
Number 3 trips up a hell of a lot of people. I see it a lot at my own uni; the exchange students can be spotted almost immediately by the fact that they’re surrounded by other foreigners and maybe 1 Japanese person per group who’s interested enough to actually try to get into that group (at a worryingly high rate, it’s a sleazy guy who looks mostly interested in foreign girls).
If you have the funds, language school may be an interesting investment, though again, refer to point 1. Also, may I ask how old you are?