Hello everyone, I’m looking for recommendations for language schools in Japan. In an ideal world, I’d love to stay for 6 months, but 3 months seems more financially realistic for me at this point in time. I could be convinced, though. I feel like I might regret not staying longer, and those extra 3 months would probably benefit my Japanese ability immensely. I like the idea of studying in Tokyo or another major city, since I’ve lived my whole life in rural parts of the US, but I’m by no means set on it.
This is probably redundant to say, but the two things I’m really looking to get out of my experience is:
* Advancing my Japanese as much as possible. I’m okay with a more rigorous curriculum if I can reap the benefits.
* A solid social atmosphere. I’d like to actually have friends to spend time with outside of class.
The schools that seem promising to me so far are **ISI**, **FFLC**, **Naganuma**, **Yamasa**, and **ALA.**
As the title states, I’m at an advanced beginner/intermediate level. Knowledge wise, I’m around N3 when it comes to vocabulary and grammar, but God knows I could probably barely pass an N4 exam. I just have so little practical experience with actually using the language. This is probably my biggest motivation for enrolling. Hopefully I can work on these weak points prior to attending, as I’d hate to test into a class that’s too easy.
That said, I know that even within the same school, not all difficulty levels are created equal. A lot of people seem to really like GenkiJACS, but also say that the higher levels tend to be poorly organized/taught. I may not be past that threshold yet skill wise, but I’d rather not take that gamble. I’d love to know if any other schools have this problem as well.
A decent population of westerner students would be nice since—to my understanding—it can be very difficult to socialize with your asian classmates.
Additionally, I’m wondering if there’s a “best” time to join as a new student. I know most schools break up the year into 4 terms, but technically a new school year starts in April. As a new student, how does this affect your ability to integrate with your fellow classmates? If each term is treated like a new semester in college, then I’d imagine this isn’t much of an issue. I simply have no idea how often students are shuffled around, new classes are formed, etc.
Thanks in advanced!
4 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**Japanese Language School Recommendations for Advanced Beginner/Intermediate level?**
Hello everyone, I’m looking for recommendations for language schools in Japan. In an ideal world, I’d love to stay for 6 months, but 3 months seems more financially realistic for me at this point in time. I could be convinced, though. I feel like I might regret not staying longer, and those extra 3 months would probably benefit my Japanese ability immensely. I like the idea of studying in Tokyo or another major city, since I’ve lived my whole life in rural parts of the US, but I’m by no means set on it.
This is probably redundant to say, but the two things I’m really looking to get out of my experience is:
* Advancing my Japanese as much as possible. I’m okay with a more rigorous curriculum if I can reap the benefits.
* A solid social atmosphere. I’d like to actually have friends to spend time with outside of class.
The schools that seem promising to me so far are **ISI**, **FFLC**, **Naganuma**, **Yamasa**, and **ALA.**
As the title states, I’m at an advanced beginner/intermediate level. Knowledge wise, I’m around N3 when it comes to vocabulary and grammar, but God knows I could probably barely pass an N4 exam. I just have so little practical experience with actually using the language. This is probably my biggest motivation for enrolling. Hopefully I can work on these weak points prior to attending, as I’d hate to test into a class that’s too easy.
That said, I know that even within the same school, not all difficulty levels are created equal. A lot of people seem to really like GenkiJACS, but also say that the higher levels tend to be poorly organized/taught. I may not be past that threshold yet skill wise, but I’d rather not take that gamble. I’d love to know if any other schools have this problem as well.
A decent population of westerner students would be nice since—to my understanding—it can be very difficult to socialize with your asian classmates.
Additionally, I’m wondering if there’s a “best” time to join as a new student. I know most schools break up the year into 4 terms, but technically a new school year starts in April. As a new student, how does this affect your ability to integrate with your fellow classmates? If each term is treated like a new semester in college, then I’d imagine this isn’t much of an issue. I simply have no idea how often students are shuffled around, new classes are formed, etc.
Thanks in advanced!
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Not Kairin Juku for sure if you’re looking at Saitama/Tochigi areas.
For timing, definitely trying to arrive for the start of one of the terms. It’s pretty common for students to start and finish at different times (ie. not all starting in April, finishing in March).
If you only want to come for 3 or 6 months you can arrive on a tourist visa (2 x 6 months doing an outside the country trip in the middle), and that opens you up for more schools as some don’t support student visas. It’s also far less paperwork and hassle if you don’t need to apply for a student visa.
The only other bit of advice is if you pick a smaller city, basically somewhere smaller than Tokyo or Osaka, you may have more opportunities to be “forced” to use your Japanese day to day. Because Tokyo is set up for tourists, it’s easy to get around and not use Japanese at all, and if you look obviously foreign people may automatically speak to you in English.
Hey OP
If you want to really advance your Japanese then you’ll need more time than 3 or 6 months, you’ll barely get through settling into life and you’ll have to leave (I just came back from 3 months in Japan) but I guess it’s better than nothing.
My suggestion is don’t do a visa run if you want more than 3 months then apply for a visa. You also can’t work on a tourist visa.
In terms of when to start, October is a good idea cause many people from the west usually start their academic year at that point so there might be other people starting at that date. Another thing to consider is how much do you want to hang out with people from the west if you want to improve your Japanese? Cause speaking to other foreigners in Japanese is a recipe for disaster as no one can correct you and you might learn bad grammar and pronunciation.
Finally, having a part time job in Japan is probably one of the best ways to improve your language (another reason to do student visa) cause you’ll have to work in Japanese and will hopefully have Japanese coworkers (you can probably tell if there are many foreigner working somewhere and just avoid that place).
But again don’t get your hopes too high, in that short a time you won’t improve much as getting past N3 is where Japanese gets much harder. Not to mention past N2.