Hi, My name is Shiela and, I have been living in Japan for almost 6 years now (*happy dance*) I want to share with you my experience studying Japanese in Japan for 1 year and these are the 3 main things about it that I want to talk about.
(1) First, the "Prices", from where I studied, it was around 800,000 yen or around 355,000 pesos per year. I heard that it costs around 600,000 yen or around 246,000 pesos for a year where 2 of my friends studied. Tho, there are other ways of studying Japanese, even for free, going to an official school does give you a student visa to stay in Japan and allows you to work as a part-timer for 28 hours per week.
(2) Second, I want to share with you how I learned Japanese in School. My classes were in the morning from 9:00 am-1:00 pm. All faculty members of the school only spoke in Japanese, I honestly don’t know how I survived having only konnichiwa, oyasumi, sayonara, and baka in my list of vocabulary words. But I thought it was effective because my brain had to do some extra work to communicate around the school.
I started in the beginner's class so all of our textbooks and handouts had English translations with them. Also, I had to learn and memorize the "Katakana" and "Hiragana" before the school year started.
In school, we practiced writing, reading, listening, and speaking. My favorite part of the class was called “Shadowing” where you listen to a Japanese conversation and you repeat the words and intonations of the speaker right away. If you're thinking of starting to learn Japanese, Shadowing will be helpful.
(3) Lastly, I want to share the unique experiences I had, going to a language school here in Japan. I was able to meet people from different parts of the world and became good friends with them. From Russia, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Yemen, Thailand, Vietnam, and Catalonia, and honestly I have never been to any of these countries but meeting them in school was a great opportunity to learn some things about their culture.
I even pushed my boundaries by joining a speech contest and a band where I played the ukulele and we sang Japanese songs during school events. (I played with Sofia from Sweden and Anton from Russia, we called ourselves a rock band)
It varies from school to school but mine had field trips, and japanese traditional events which I think helped me learn the language more effectively because I was immersed in the culture.
That’s it, friends! Those are the 3 things I wanted to share about the time I went to study Japanese in Japan.
If you, your friend, or a family member are planning to study Japanese in Japan and have questions, you can send me an email at any time at this link: Let's talk, I’d be happy to help you. Thanks for reading, mata ne!