Dailies Contact Lenses

For people who have been to Japanese Language School and done Intensive course?

How long did you do the intensive course for? The lessons basically focus on daily conv. Where did you study? How is your Japanese now compared to how it was before you did a course? Any help greatly appreciated.

Public Comments

1. I went for six months in Sendai. My Japanese improved a lot. I basically went from JLPT 4 to 2. It would take me a lot of study though to get from 2 to 1.
2. I went to Japanese language school in Tokyo for three months. I already had some basic knowledge and one college semester under my belt, but at the school we started from zero and worked up to around college level 3 semester 1 japanese. my reading and writing has improved, and i've gained lots of vocabulary. my speaking skills havent increased basically because 3 months is not a good enough time to get into the groove of speaking japanese on a daily basis. I plan to go back to the same school this semester for 2 terms (equal to 3 levels of college japanese) aka 7mo. I really enjoyed it, you learn Japanese way faster and better than you ever could in the US. http://www.kcpinternational.com
3. I didn't go to one of those schools for gaijin but I wanted to urge you to go to Japan regardless if you go to one of those schools. I believe immersion is the fastest way to learn and if those schools are too expensive (I think they are!), you might be able to do an exchange program and live with a host family or get a cheap plane ticket and stay at a cheap hostel, etc. You get the idea. You just need to be there and avoid using English as a crutch. So stay away from a really big city or areas with American military. It's good for when you feel homesick but if you really want to learn, you have got to get away from English media/speakers. I'm half Japanese and my mom forced us, her kids, to learn in America but it wouldn't stick because who cares about some language no one around you speaks when you're missing Saturday morning cartoons. Then we moved to Japan to learn and for the 1st year didn't learn much because English was all around us. Got thrown into Japanese public school and learned quickly. Ganbatte!
4. I studied abroad to Sophia University, didn't learn much Japanese. I took off a semester to study and one of the top language schools. Naganuma school http://www.naganuma-school.or.jp/school_2/en/home/index.html This school is well known, and the location many ambassadors in training are sent to. The classes are better than my classes in University,hands down. I don't think it's perfect, and I feel there is room for a lot of improvement, but it's definately decent. The textbook at naganuma was is written by the school, and is written text about iinteresting culture notes,and history of japan. So if you have an instructure which like the discussion method My Japanese listening and grammatical understanding ability has increased a lot. My biggest problem is curbing my bad habits and using colloquial japanese, instead of proper. Many other gaijins will say it's useless to learn proper. But I find value in it, and it's really helps you understand a lot of things in japanese culture, if you pay close attention to details. Personal opinion is to now go to such a big city location like Tokyo. It's hard to make japanese friends. Your best to live further into the outskirts and do it the immersion way... If you want to learn in a fast amount of time. Hope I was helpful. If you decide to come to tokyo...check out my blog about survival tips, and how-to's.^_^ http://wanderingabc.blogspot.com/l Best of luck. -Claudia