Last night I went to my first ever Japanese class. I’ve been studying with apps and just by talking to my boyfriend who is Japanese for the last year and a half. It was an intermediate class, so I was really nervous. But they don’t use any kanji, at all. When I asked the teacher what the kanji was for a word I didn’t know, she just said that it’s really complicated. The best speakers in the class were like “no no kanji”. And they’re only about a fifth of the way into genki two after half a year of classes. I think using bunpro gives me more knowledge than going through a textbook slowly with a class. But it was pretty fun being called on to answer fill-in-the-blank sentences and get to use words that don’t come up in conversation with my boyfriend or his family. I don’t know why but I left feeling kinda sad, I had had really high hopes for the class I guess. Is being exposed to a different immersive environment worth it, despite my reservations? Should I look for a private tutor? Or is it fine to just keep using apps to learn? My city is small so I don’t think there’s that many options.
Sorry if this is any the wrong section or anything! 助けてください
Hi,
My suggestion is to look at the online offerings from the language school at Japan Society in NYC. Prior to COVID-19 Japan Society had no online offerings, now they have many. The course text is Genki I and II. The also offer further levels beyond Genki, as well as specialized Kanji and other courses. If you want Kanji, they’ve got it !
I studied there in-person for several years. All instructors are native Japanese speakers and all are professional teachers. The instruction, the support and the encouragement from the instructors is unmatched. Recommended without reservation.
Thank you so much! I was living in NYC until last month but my visa just ran out and I had to come home. It would be cool to stay connected to the city in a small way
Congratulations on going to your first class! I’m sure it was a bit nerve-wracking.
Are you studying to get a degree? Or out of pure interest in the language?
Going through Genki without touching kanji feels like a red flag to me. I had a friend who they took several Japanese classes in college, but the first 2 years of classes they never touched kanji as it was a professors opinion that it wasn’t necessary. Then when the old professor transferred all of a sudden here is all the kanji they should’ve known by now and my friend got blindsided and quit as a result.
Since you are doing outside study for kanji you could continue if you’d like just for interpersonal conversational reasons, or if you have the money for a tutor this works too if you can find one that will give you worksheets etc. to scratch the practical use/ knowledge testing. There are benefits to having several language partners and people to study with outside of class, but if they’re lacking in the skill that you’re at with your individual study it could end up just leaving you feeling dissatisfied and sad. not to mention whatever fees you’re paying to take the class too
I’m studying so I can talk to my partners family, when we’re all together it’s so fun to be able to talk together and understand. We will probably live in Japan sometime in the next few years. It’s not a university class or anything.
Thank you so much for your comment! It felt jarring to read all these hiragana only sentences, kanji helps so much with connecting sounds to meaning and separating out all the homophones. I think that my personal study resources are so well made (wanikani, bunpro, Japanese with shun etc) that the only thing I would be getting out of it would be conversation. But the participants were speaking in English among themselves a lot so maybe its not worth the investment
Oh thank goodness you put that in there because I was so worried…
This sounds like you would be better off doing the course suggested before from the Japan Society, although I don’t know your financial situation or how that would work. But I do know that that class doesn’t sound like it will be that helpful. Is there a more advanced class you can enroll in in your area? You mentioned this was the intermediate, so is there anything above that?
really depends cannot tell what the class goals are.
if the primary goal is speaking, not writing then you generally don’t need kanji right?
nothing says you cannot take the class and use kanji anyway outside
if it’s free, then no biggie, but if it’s costing you money depends, is the course fee non refundable, sunk cost, then stick it out a few classes. never knew might make some language exchange friends that will benefit you outside that class.
ultimately only you can decide if it’s right for you. it sounds like your expectations of the class vs what the class is don’t line up. but hard to know for sure if that’s even the case after only one class. it’s not an anime series but usually give them a few ep to decide if they are gonna be good or not.
best of luck.
if it is a paid course and you cannot get a refund, don’t panic, maybe you can still get something out of it.
edit: oh yeah forgot to mention, (you mentioned being in a tiny town) - italki is a great platform if you want a 1-1 tutor / private lessons with native speakers. it’s not free but there are teachers and tutors so if you want formal or informal practice it’s available. been using it for years and it’s been very helpful with developing my speaking skills. even met one of my teachers when i went to japan.
I’ve taken a bunch of different Japanese classes over the last few years, and they really varied in their approaches, and some were kind of frustrating. That said, I felt like I got something out of each of them, even when they weren’t exactly what I wanted. If you’ve paid for the class and can’t get a refund, I’d suggest sticking it out for at least a few more classes to see if there’s anything of value there.
Aside from that, there are lots and lots of online options if there isn’t something else available in your town; the suggestion of Japan Society courses is a good one. I have taken online courses through local colleges, universities and now the local Japanese cultural centre, and there have always been students who are not local (in my very first course, one of the students was actually living in Tokyo!)
Right; the typical classroom/textbook learning path prioritises kanji study somewhat less than the “online self directed learning” community which WK users are often part of or influenced by, and so I think it’s not necessarily super surprising if you’re at a different point than your classmates with your balance of how far you are advanced with learning kanji versus the grammar and speaking and other things the class is focusing on. There do seem to be some other potential yellow flags from the other things mentioned about the class, but at least in principle it’s totally possible to get quite a bit from an in person class and do kanji study specifically on your own time. (In fact I think kanji are an area where class based “everybody needs to go at the same pace” study is not very necessary and self study is pretty effective.)
I do a local class that goes slow. For me it’s worth it, bit it depends what you value out of it. For mine, we speak mainly in Japanese so it’s light-hearted conversion practice and I like having a community feeling (actually knowing people I can meet face to face who are studying Japanese) . For me that’s worth it and I self study most of what I learn. So really you have to look at what you need and want, and if you’re getting the community and conversational aspects elsewhere, or want/ need to explore things more efficiently elsewhere, then you’ll want to be more economical with your time.
It’s easy to say drop the course if they talk too much English, but …Keep in mind how much time people spend here answering questions and discussing in English - don’t undervalue the role of community in getting to your goal. And if you want that in person why not?
Oof level High. If it’s an intermediate class and they’re crawling through Genki, it’s a beginner class masquerading as an intermediate class.
I would highly recommend at least getting a private tutor and focusing on your weak points. A class setting can be good, but if their pacing is like this, you will easily outpace them by just doing a textbook on your own.
For instance, I am currently on my 3rd semester of group classes. We’re still 中級, though at least now slowly reaching N2 level (I am a little below N2 myself). While some of the N3 rep was beneficial to me, the group has been doing 中級 material for 8 years (?!?!?!?!) prior to me joining, with a different teacher.
In other words, if you see the pacing is off-putting and the class too slow, run. run
Thanks so much for your thoughts everyone! I really appreciate people sharing their experiences with Japanese classes so I have more of an idea of what they can be like. I haven’t paid anything yet, it was a free trial
I started WK 2+ years ago, very enthusiastic to learn kanji and looking forward to learning Japanese via reading. Over time and experience I found that kanji wasn’t doing it for me and I moved toward studying more conversational Japanese.
I started an adult beginner’s class that used Genki and hated it. The pace of the teaching via the textbook seemed silly. How was I to remember the words just via a brief overview without focused work? I dropped it.
I then started weekly classes with a Japanese teacher on iTalki. We used the Minna no Nihongo book which in my opinion is far superior to Genki in every way. I studied with her for over a year and although I learned some nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and was very diligent in doing the homework, I felt that my actual learning as measured by an ability to recall phrases and sentences wasn’t really improving much. It was like I was a book-learner, just marching through the book, but not really internalizing.
A couple of months ago I switched to Pimsleur which is 100% focused on conversational Japanese. It’s only $20/month (don’t pay for the lifetime subscription unless you want to study many languages), it has a fabulous cellphone app, and good resources on that app as well as their website. Finally, it feels like I’m learning and I am grateful for my previous WK and other experience as I find myself recalling words I’d studied before. Really, it’s quite good.
They say that you can progress through their 30-minute classes every day, progressing through their 5 levels of 30 lessons each. I found that I repeat each lesson 3x over two days which helps cement the teachings. Like WK they also use a spaced repetition method. I just completed their first set of classes yesterday which took me two months. The $40 is well worth it.
For you, who needs more intermediate teaching it’s easy to jump ahead to their more advanced lessons and dive in there. But, you know, maybe you’ll find those not advanced enough. If so, that experiment will cost you $20 because you can cancel your subscription at any time.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience! That sounds like a great resource. I decided to try an online tutor too, just for talking to. We have conversations and she writes down what I say and corrects my grammar on a document as we go. It’s really fun and I’m really happy with my study routine now
