So I’m a french guy who just started to live in Paris, and I can finally start taking Japanese classes.
There’s a lot of groups, school, night classes available, is there anything which could help me assure this is a serious and good class? I don’t have a lot of free time so I would like to make the best out of it.
2 comments
A focus on conversation, I guess, since it’s easier to do the other stuff on your own.
It’s easy for schools to take your money and drill kanji/grammar from a textbook for an hour, so try to avoid that. Not a big deal if you’re in class everyday, but it’s a waste if you’re going once a week or something like that.
Depends on the cost, the amount of class hours and the goals set I would say. Where I live we have a bunch of different kinds of classes with all very different goals. You have your basic ‘I want to travel and be able to interact a little’-type which offer little more than a 30-day survival course spread out over 2-3 months. You got your high school/college type ones which aim to teach you the language but really are just guided textbook studies with limited interaction. And then you have your ‘serious’ ones.
As the Quixote0630 said a focus on conversation is important. It would be great to have a conversation with the teacher before signing up for the class to understand what the goal is and if they follow set materials like Genki. Any good program and good teacher will not shy away from giving direct answers.