Currently, I’m teaching myself Japanese but to be honest, with all the resources online, I’ve honestly found it overwhelming and hard to get into. I’m doing okay and I’ll continue to crack on but I think I’d like to attend physical classes in Japan itself. Setting up my own curriculum isn’t easy and after a long time of trying, I think being there is the next best option, especially now that I want to start passing the JLPT’s.
I know there are probably threads out there on this. I haven’t seen any recent ones, but ones from years ago. Currently doing a whole bunch of google searches on it.
Opinions from first hand learners here, what’s your experiences?
3 comments
J’s language school in Ebisu is good and does online lessons too!
Japanese Language schools honestly suck. This coming from a person living in Japan for 4 years and fluent in Japanese. If you’re a beginner all they do is teach you grammar (in Japanese btw) and you have no chances of actually speaking, which makes no sense. They will be explaining grammar rules to you in Japanese. If you’re intermediate, you get a chance to actually speak in Japanese.
I personally recommend giving up on language schools and if you want to learn to SPEAK Japanese start by repeating and mimicking phrases in Japanese, like a baby would do. Repeat them over and over and if you can make a few Japanese friends online before coming to Japan and talk to them. The best way to practice speaking is by speaking even slowly, bit by bit. There are people who have passed JLPT N1 and still have no conversation skills.
I personally recommend following speaks_Jo on instagram or Patreon, that has been my main source of studying and I have no issues working in a Japanese environment. 🙂
If you like to have a tutor like type of teaching you can go to the city hall and ask for volunteer teaching centers near your area. You will be taught by volunteer teachers one on one(sometimes you are in a table with 1-2 other students) but they don’t teach as a class, so if you have questions that are a bit advanced you can easily ask them since all of yoy would be studying different things/levels depending on your understanding. Though you still have to pay ¥100-500 depending on the center.
Regarding the learning materials, some are sold by them while most of the time you buy your own book that is suggested by them. I am currently in one and not that advanced yet so i don’t know how far they are willing to teach in terms of difficulty of the language. Hope it helps!