Japanese Language Schools - HELP!

www.yamasa.org

Edit: After further thought given your link and the thread title, I'm not sure what you want.
If you want to learn Japanese in Japan, see above. If you want to learn Chinese in Japan... don't bother.

Hi, I'm personally quite interested in learning Japanese in Japan for 3 or 4 months. I had a look at your link but it doesn't really seem that it is suitable for gap year students of 18 years old. It seems more tailored to graduates

Do you have any other suggestions?

Yamasa has several short-term programmes like their "Acceleration Program" or "AIJP". You can even use a tourist visa to study in the three-months programmes and save yourself the effort of having to obtain a student visa.

Their website is a mess. Have patience and read through all of it. You should find what you are looking for. You could also E-Mail them. They are really nice.

I initially wanted to study Japanese at Yamasa for two years, but since that is super expensive, I decided that it may be smarter to study Japanese at a university in England and do a year abroad. But if no unis accept me, Yamasa is still my backup plan, since their applications only open end of March. :3



Not exactly, but I can give you some resources:

http://jls-guide.com/english/school_list/index.html (a directory of Japanese language schools)
http://www.jref.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=181 (decent forum about studying in Japan)

Also, a Google search for "<name of school> sucks" can often help to find anything negative about it.


Some things to consider:

Do you have the necessary dedication?
What exactly do you want to learn? Just speaking? Reading and writing?
Would you mind if 8 of 10 in your class are Chinese or Korean who don't speak English?
Are you okay with living alone thousands of miles away from home in a country whose language you don't speak and whose customs you don't know?

Could I ask you why you've highlighted Yamasa over all the others?

Mainly because:

- I know someone who went there and can vouch that their website isn't full of lies and falsehood to lure students in
- It's supposedly a non-profit/not-for-profit institution
- Japanese government trusts them enough to generally always grant student visa requests
- They have nationality quotas to ensure there's a mix of all cultures around (e.g. no classes with 10 Chinese and 1 English person)
- They supposedly try to employ a number of male teachers so boys don't end up speaking girly Japanese.

But there are downsides too:

- Passing score is 75% if I recall correctly.
- Supposedly teachers can also hold you back even though you scored higher if they don't think you are ready for the next level
- They're highly selective in whom they let in
- Rooms in some dorms can be hard to get if you apply late



The website of the language school you linked to looks interesting. I'll browse through it when I have some more free time.

www.yamasa.org

Edit: After further thought given your link and the thread title, I'm not sure what you want.
If you want to learn Japanese in Japan, see above. If you want to learn Chinese in Japan... don't bother.

Just wanted to say, I did the Accelerated program at Yamasa over the summer, and it was excellent.

How was learning via total immersion (i.e. no English used at all)?
If money weren't an issue, for that reason alone I'd probably ditch studying Japanese at Uni in the UK and study there for extended period of time instead. On the other hand, I have my doubts about the effectiveness of that teaching method. How can they convey grammar rules in a language students don't fully understand yet?, etc.

How was learning kanji?

Were classes as mixed (culturally) as they boast about it on their website?

What were typical lessons like? I heard Yamasa loves continuous assessment (weekly quizzes and tests and all that).

Yamasa applications for Autumn open March 20th. So far none of the unis I want to study Japanese at in the UK have made me an offer, so Yamasa is tempting me more and more each day I spend waiting... :s

There is no grammar explanation in class btw, but they do use Minna No Nihongo, and give you the translated version in your native lang uage.

Honestly, kanji is far from the hardest thing in Asian languages. I've learned quite a few by now, especially with Chinese, and thanks to keys (phonetic and radicals) it just comes together in the end. But the first ones are extremely hard.

We were the maximum number of 8, and there were two Europeans (this spanish girl and me - I'm "French.") The rest I think were all American, or with some Asian roots but basically American.

tests virtually every day or every two days.

Where have you applied?

As long as it's not seven Asian and one non-Asian person. That seems to be the standard in other language schools. If you browse various forums where people report about studying in Japan, the thread sometimes ends with them saying they're going home because they feel isolated.
It would really suck to arrive in Okazaki and not to be able to make any friends at all in class due to the language barrier. It would feel really awkward if all I could do was speak to people the same age as me using Japanese in the polite form and textbook phrases. Yamasa is one of the few language schools who seem to say "yes, we realize this could be a problem, and we will try to do something about it."

Still waiting on Sheffield, SOAS, and Edinburgh. Loads of people got offers or interviews from those places already, so it's annoying not to hear anything. I withdrew my application to Manchester since they wanted me to pay the international student fee because I will already have a degree when I start, and Leeds rejected me because they thought I was not enthusiastic enough about studying Japanese... whatever that means.

Just wanted to say, I did the Accelerated program at Yamasa over the summer, and it was excellent. If either of you has any questions about it, please don't hesitate to ask.