I’ve been self studying since the start but I can vividly remember my reason for not getting a tutor was due to financial reasons. I could not afford one.
Do you guys share the same reason or are there other reasons outside of money that you choose not to.
Let’s also assume the tutor is a great one. The way I see it is that you have a dedicated teacher to guide you every step of the way as well as receiving instant practice with a native.
What’s your reasons? Do you just prefer self study?
For fun, I booked a lesson with a tutor in a few days just to see how the experience is. My current technique has been to call people on HelloTalk and practice but I have been curious how it will differ with a professional language teacher.
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Besides financial reasons, there’s not a single reason stopping me from getting a tutor.
However I do like to note, I don’t like to work with a tutor *all the time*. Say if I have 10 hours a week, I would use 4 hrs with a tutor and 6 hrs self-studying. I picture working with the tutor as “eating” and self-studying as “digesting” — you don’t want to eat all the time without properly digesting, right?
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Things I recommend you do with a tutor:
* Ask **specific** questions
* Pronunciation practice
* grade your stuff and drill weak spots
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Things I recommend you do yourself, before and after tutor sessions:
* all memorization (be it Kanji, grammar, etc.)
* do homework / exercise problems
* preview contents for the next session and jot down specific questions
* make schedule
* hellotalk, wanikani, etc.
I got one after about 2000 hours of self-study.
My reason for not getting one at first was I don’t need to pay someone to teach me the ABCs so-to-speak, but for conversation practice, yeah it’s great!
To elaborate, I went with the “Genki” books and after that I was able to read books in Japanese (with difficulty). For that stuff, I didn’t need a tutor that much. Likewise, just for increasing vocab, you have Anki.
Indeed, the bulk of my study is still “self-study”, I just use a tutor a few times a week to do some talking.
Time. I just don’t have that much for a tutor
For me, it’s that I want to learn as much as I can on my own before seeking a tutor. I feel that I want to use the time spent with a tutor on things that I can’t learn on my own, or need help with. Kana I can learn on my own. Pronunciation I can learn, basic sentence structure, etc. But when I start gettin’ into the hard stuff, and really learning how the language works, and the more difficult parts of grammar, etc., then I’m goin’ to really want a tutor.
The usuals: money and time.
It’s not money for me. My issue is finding one with a schedule I like and one that is appealing to me ( I need one fluent enough in English where I can explain how I want tutoring to be because I’m a total beginner in Japanese)
I do not enjoy talking with, or meeting people, like many persons who learn Japanese..
I also have troubles sticking to a fixed schedule further compounded by sleep rhythm problems.
You got things mixed up, it’s the other way around.
You don’t need a reason not to get a private tutor, you need a reason to get a private tutor.
I managed perfectly fine on my own.
I am trying to get a private tutor now using Preply.
My reason why I didnt get a private tutor in the past were:
* options were expensive
* i thought i can just learn on my own
* i prefer physical classes, studying with felow learners – but its very rare now after covid. all japanese schools here in japan are now mostly online