Hello,
I just submitted my application to Waseda SILS as someone who has lived in the United States my whole life, only speaking English. I plan to stay in Japan after I graduate so I was wondering: will I be able to become a fluent speaker by the time I graduate (or hopefully before), solely taking Waseda SILS Japanese learning classes? Of course, this is assuming I put full effort into the classes. I feel like complete immersion (living in Tokyo) will help me learn the language quickly but would love to hear any insight or advice anyone could give. I ask this because I know a lot of times, classroom language learning through a school is usually terrible and they often teach you the “textbook” version of the language that is very different compared to native speakers (I base this off of my experience taking Spanish in school).
Thank you!
4 comments
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>will I be able to become a fluent speaker by the time I graduate (or hopefully before), solely taking Waseda SILS Japanese learning classes?
***Only*** taking the school-provided courses? No, you will not be fully fluent by the time you graduate.
You will need to study on your own time, beyond simply doing the class work.
As always, the metric that most language schools use is 6 months of *full time* study for each JLPT level. You will not be studying Japanese full time. You’ll be taking all your other courses as well.
It will certainly be possible to achieve a reasonable level of fluency by the time you graduate, but you’re going to need to do a lot of work on your own.
>I feel like complete immersion (living in Tokyo) will help me learn the language quickly
It will not. Immersion is not a functional language learning tool as an adult. You would be surprised how little fluency you need to get by in your day to day life, especially in your case where you’ll be spending most of your day operating in English for your classes.
I’ve seen countless people come to Japan counting on “immersion” to get them fluent, and once they get the basics like “Where is the train station?” and “No sauce on my Big Mac” they basically plateau.
Again: You’ll need to put in the time.
>I ask this because I know a lot of times, classroom language learning through a school is usually terrible and they often teach you the “textbook” version of the language that is very different compared to native speakers (**I base this off of my experience taking Spanish in school**).
Here’s where I flip around and say you’re *underestimating*, compared to the rest of it where you’re kinda overestimating.
You were (I’m assuming based on *my* experiences in American schools), taught Spanish by a non-native speaker, with no expectation that you would actually use the language. So it’s not surprising that the classes weren’t particularly helpful.
University-level language classes are a whole other game, even in the US. The classes at Waseda are good, from everything I’ve heard. And you’ll have motivation to actually use and practice the language.
If you have zero Japanese knowledge at the time of entering SILS, there’s no chance of becoming fluent. You’ll still need to keep studying after graduation.
SILS’ Japanese classes are the same classes taken by students in CJL who are full time language students – and even they are not fully fluent by the end of their program unless they started Japanese beforehand and take higher level classes.
If you want a head start, you should start learning Japanese right now and aim to enter at level 1 (the lowest is 0) when you enter in the fall.
Combine classes with using Japanese in real life, and also with immersion in your room in your own time, e.g. make a Japanese youtube account, Netflix etc and watch heaps of stuff and look up words/sentences you don’t know. If you do all three for hours and hours a day: (1) classes + self study, (2) use Japanese in person, (3) immersion at home; you’ll end up being really good. Also note that (2) and (3) are much more important than classes imo; although classes will help you make a start.