I’m just curious about the whole overall experience of it. From classes to social life, to class structure, homework load, how good your Japanese was going in vs when you graduated, hours spent studying compared to native Japanese, etc.
I met a lot of people when I lived in Korea who did it, but I’ve only met a handful here in Japan and didn’t get to pick their brains really.
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Entered university in 2018 and did two years of Japanese class. It was hell. In the first semester it was 4.5 hours of Japanese classes a day. The workload was way too much and it was difficult to do both my actual degree and keep up with Japanese classes so I chose to slack off in my Japanese. That being said I’m grateful for the experience because my Japanese is fairly decent now and wouldn’t have been as good as it is without those terrible classes lol
So a long time ago, more than 10 years now, I took intermediate Japanese classes at a university for two semesters. It was short, but I learned a lot. If I recall correctly, the classes were 2 hours a day 3 days a week for the full semester and 4 hours a day 4-5 days a week during the summer semester (intense course).
Both were very stressful. Homework usually involved hand writing paragraph responses to a reading while at the same time learning about 50+ kanji a week.
At the end of the two semesters, I knew about 1200-1400 characters and my Japanese improved a lot. I can’t say I had much of a social life then. I’d have to say I spent at least 2-3 hours studying after class a day.
If I were to go back in time, I’d do it again. And exactly the same way. What really helped was not having a smart phone. I also couldn’t afford an electronic dictionary either so it really really forced me to learn.
Today, I can’t say I know as many characters as I did. Partially because of not actively living in Japan. But I still speak just fine.
Did a degree while learning japanese. I was really interested in Japanese so it was fine experience. The Japanese class was free in our university so I just had to manage time. My supervisor was fluent in English so he helped me a lot in beginning
Did pretty much that, back in the late 90s.
Tough question. I started from very basic level (ordering food, introducing myself, having basic convos, etc.) to reaching what is now N1 in roughly 2 years or so (with some hardcore dedication, to be honest). Tough to say how many hours I spent. Several per day, that’s for sure.
That’s pretty much when it hit me that my Japanese was still kind of “basic” and that’s all it’ll ever be. Enough to roughly understand the courses at the university or read a newspaper, sure, but still quite far from being “native”. Even after over a quarter of a century, I still don’t consider I am “native”, actually far from it. I can have more or less any kind of casual or business conversation in a company, watch most movies, read the newspapers without trouble, but for instance my daughter can read —way— faster than me. Give me anything written before WW2 and I’ll probably need to concentraite -a lot-.
Your brain becomes a bit less flexible after 25,,,,,
Did a bachelor degree in art (focusing on 2d animation) here all in Japanese.
Classes – extremely easy. It’s generally harder to get in to university here because of difficult entrance exams. In art uni case, you have to have a 3-6 hour drawings exam + portfolio + interview in most cases. The drawings exam standard is quite high so 99% of students take additional drawings classes that prepare specifically for that.
But once you are in, it’s quite easy, you make your own schedule and take those subjects that you are interested in, you can also adjust your study load (mostly. Some classes are mandatory to take)
Class structure – 1.5 hour long class for theoretical lectures. 3h long class for practical subjects with a break in between.
Generally up to 6 lectures a day, but because you choose your own schedule, I never had more than 4 at busiest.
Japanese – I entered with an N1 level and never had any problems during classes. The hard bit was writing a 60 pages long scenario in Japanese – this is when I had to do a lot of research.
No problem communicating with the teachers.
There were many foreign students whose Japanese was very mediocre, and I heard from them that it was very hard to get through classes. Not because of their level of difficulty, but because they just couldn’t understand what was required from them.
My uni also required taking mandatory Japanese for a year that were completely useless at my level. (3h a week)
My japanese got a lot better by the time of being a year 4 student for sure, but not as much from the class as just from me actively using it or surrounding myself with it.
Social life – everyone is SUPER shy. Like a teacher would ask a question and there would be complete silence 99% of the time type of situation.
Same applied to outside of class interactions – people don’t try to actively engage in a convo with you.
Add corona on top of that = no social life for most of the time at uni.
I do think having artsy students kinda influences it here, people from other departments (like film etc) seemed more outgoing to me.
Homework load – really depends on the class. Can be nothing. Can be 60page long scenario type of hw.
But mostly you get small hws throughout the sem, and then a big one at the end.
Hours studying compared to Japanese students – way less. A lot of people struggle with basic homework, find things difficult to comprehend even speaking the language natively.
I felt like a lot of it comes down to how much you’re used to studying and how well you manage yourself and your time.
(This is excluding drawings homework – this really depends on what you draw and the technique).
*Level of education – depends on uni really. In my case I felt like it was quite basic and definitely not enough to get you into the industry you study for. If you just follow the classes – you’re screwed. If you take these 4 years as time to develop yourself and your skill/knowledge and have classes on the side -> you will have the most fulfilling and best experience possible.
**also the more important part is to get to know the professors and find those you like and be friends with them. This is what actually can teach you a lot, because a lot of the time they either work or know someone who works in your field, and that kind of good relationship can get you where you need to be (to learn more and faster).
Hope this helps 🙂