I’ve been studying Chinese at a program in Taiwan for about a year at a program that is three hours a day of 4 person classes, one hour of 1-1 class, and then between 4-8 hours of homework, and I’ve found this type of very intensive, very speaking-heavy language study seems to work very well for me. This fall I intend to head to Japan and start studying Japanese, and I wondered if there were any similar programs that people were aware of over there?
I had initially been planning to apply to the Waseda program, but looking more closely, it looks like class sizes are *much* larger than what I’m doing now, which I worry will mean much slower progress (at least for me).
A few additional details about me:
* Unlike Chinese, which I started from zero, my Japanese level is a bit of a jumbled mess. After having traveled over there extensively, my listening and reading ability aren’t horrible, but my speaking absolutely sucks, and my study has all be self-driven. In addition, I’m going have the unusual situation of having a decent, but not native-chinese-speaker level of kanji/漢字 knowledge. Given that mess of my current state of japanese, it would be nice to have a program that had some level of flexibility/personalization in its curriculum.
* I really, really like Tokyo, but obviously am also willing to live elsewhere for the purposes of a good program (as evidenced by the fact that I’ve been living in Taiwan for the past year, which is definitely not Tokyo)
* I graduately from college long ago, so programs exclusively for current undergrads unfortunately don’t work.
Thanks!
2 comments
Full-time language schools in Tokyo typically are 4 hours per day, 5 days per week. Beginner class sizes are typically in the 20 person range so are not particularly speaking-heavy. I don’t know of any school with much smaller classes. But there are so many schools you will find variations.
Some schools are focused on placing Chinese and Korean students into Japanese universities & trade schools from zero within two years; so the programs tend to be intense IMHO.
For one-on-one sessions, some schools provide that as an option, for additional charge. I think it would be less expensive to find a free-lance teacher for individual sessions (say meeting in a cafe several days a week). Another option is to find free 50-50 language exchange partners (meet via zoom or in person).
Many language schools provide visa options.
You say Tokyo is your preference but if you are open to other parts of the country that can offer a good program then JALS in Hokkaido and The Yamasa Institute in Aichi are two schools you absolutely must research. Especially JALS I’ve heard from a lot of people it’s among the best and maybe even the best.