I don't know yet... can you give me some advice? coz I'm still in college, I want to continue my study or work there...??? still don't know.

i came here after finishing high school, just bought a one way ticket to tokyo, with around €5000 saved up money in my pocket. that was 3.5 years ago and im still here, going to university and working part time.

if you arent afraid of working and dont complain if you dont get 8 hours sleeping time every night, tokyo is a great place to stay for a couple of years. just make sure that you save up some money before you come to get an apartment and pay the first installment of your japanese school.
i highly recommend you to be at least on a JLPT 4 - 3 level before you come if you're gonna try living here alone. my kanji was never that great, doesnt matter, but make sure you can understand and speak easy daily life stuff. the best way to learn speaking is by finding yourself some tandem partners (language exchange partners) meet twice a week, one time you just use japanese, the other time only whatever language your tandem partner wants to practice. learning japanese in a natural way, by spending time together having fun is the best way of learning useful stuff.
i got my first part time job here 3 weeks after i arrived. so, as long as you have enough money to finance yourself for the first few months everything should be ok.

dont concentrate on speaking too correct japanese, at first important is that people understand ya. japanese people use japanese wrong themselves all the time, no one cares, its the same everywhere. so dont be shy, try to get chances to speak as much as possible.

if you're gonna come here to work for your future, i recommend you not to waste time and money at easy going japanese schools. get yourself into one that has classes everyday for several hours, preferably one that prepares people for university here. students there are usually young and eager to study since they dont have more than 1.5 years to learn enough japanese for univ. entrance exams. and of course, at the beginning stay away from english speakers and indonesian-malaysian people since you will end up speaking in your native tounge most of the time.

it may all doesnt sound that much fun, well, it can be tough to be honest, so decide whether you wanna come here and have fun, or seriously hang in there, and have more fun later.

a good school i can recommend (in tokyo) is:

�A�W�A�������� (Asian Students Cultural Association)

feel free to ask if i didnt answer what you wanted to know.

Bedi wrote:

dont concentrate on speaking too correct japanese, at first important is that people understand ya. japanese people use japanese wrong themselves all the time, no one cares, its the same everywhere. so dont be shy, try to get chances to speak as much as possible.

THAT is the most important point Bedi It's drives me nuts sometimes when somebody will say, "You should have said "ni" instead of , , ," True, you don't want to sound like an idiot, but as long as the other person understands you, that's all that really matters.

Well thanks a lot bro, Bedi. That's very helpful. btw what kind of part time job avaible there?

Well it's not a problem for me since the asian students are usually hardworkers, y'know? the main problem for me is the budget. Can you predict the estimated money I needed for monthly needs?

yohanm wrote:

Well thanks a lot bro, Bedi. That's very helpful. btw what kind of part time job avaible there?

I did a whole bunch of jobs:
International School Bus Attendant,
Trashman (pays really good here , a 100 us$ for around 5 hours of work ),
Waiter,
Security,
Party Service,
translator,
interpreter, german /turkish /english teacher (private and at schools).

-------
It was all fun and good experience. But the best job comparing easyness/payment is of course language teaching and translating.

But besides that there are lots of other opportunities:

Super markets, convenience stores, counting cars (for marketing purposes), barkeeper, pubs, IT companies (if you have the necessary skills), info service (for foreigners), callcenters, packaging goods, transportation companies, hotels etc. etc.

35% of Japans labor is build by part timers and temporary workers, especially in Tokyo you have lots of opportunities to work parttime.

However working hours are limited on a student visa (most hotels and some restaurants/pubs dont really care about that though).

And of course Scholarships! If you study hard, get some good scores, some Japanese schools offer scholarships to their students. Scholarships from outside are mostly avaiable after entering universtiy. Thanks to my power studying during the first year I got and am still getting various scholarships after entering university (between 450 - 1000 $ / month, no payback).

In my opinion a lot depends on especially the first year at japanes school, and then the first year at university since most scholarships are given away based on your grades etc. in those years.

yohanm wrote:

Well it's not a problem for me since the asian students are usually hardworkers, y'know? the main problem for me is the budget. Can you predict the estimated money I needed for monthly needs?

Hmm, monthly expenses can vary a lot of course. I remember living with 750$ /month for a couple of months but it kinda sucks to be honest. if you work and study hard all the time and only go out like once or twice a month, it's usually better to enjoy that time as much as possible to gather energy again. And I have always been living with roommates since I came, that made rent and bills a little cheaper. Most normal apartments dont allow roomsharing, if they do, maybe around 2 people who have to be listed as rentee (<-dunno if this word exists), in my case we usually were around 4 - 5 ppl though. in a 3 - 4 ldk apartment. the purpose was saving money anyway. now im living with just one friend in a 2dk apartment for 750$ a month/two + gas, water, electricity. Including my monthly train ticket (30$) + mobile phone (60 - 100$, what could be a lot cheaper) + eating out, buying food for home = 1000$ - 1100$ dollars should be ok to maintain a middle luxurious lifestyle. (but i dont save money and only went home once so far, since I prefer working a lot during the vacation and not so much during university time now)


hmmm this might all got a little mixed up, just ask again if sth else pops in your mind.

well, thanks a lot for these information....
Sorry if I asked too much question
I will ask you again if I need information again

what kind of job available in JAPAN?
i really want to go there..but i dont have any idea what kind of job is the best for me...i am college graduate

sassyanne wrote:

what kind of job available in JAPAN? i really want to go there..but i dont have any idea what kind of job is the best for me...i am college graduate

are we talking temporary part time (if so check previous posts)
or full time (if so I recommend pages like: http://www.gaijinpot.com/)?

Off topic:

Bedi, it's been quite a while. Good to see posts from you. Seems as though you took your Japanese studying to the next level. Very good for you. Keep it up.

ahochaude wrote:

Off topic: Bedi, it's been quite a while. Good to see posts from you. Seems as though you took your Japanese studying to the next level. Very good for you. Keep it up.

doumo happy that there is someone who remembered me from back then, thank you very much. I hope to have some time from now on to reply to some of the upcoming questions here.
cheers

Hi, there again.
I have a question.
If we decided to learn Japanese on our own, what is the best way to do it?

hi everyone... is there anyone here who knows any japanese language school in cebu city? i want to study japanese for the holidays, so can anyone help me please.... thanks!

zyne_03 wrote:

hi everyone... is there anyone here who knows any japanese language school in cebu city? i want to study japanese for the holidays, so can anyone help me please.... thanks!

I dont know a school but the Pimsleur language CDs were good.Ive tried them in a couple of languages. Great place to start speaking in the language.
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I am going to have a long break soon and i really wanna learn japanese efficiently. i have tried learning myself on the internet but i do not have any practice with anyone. i feel that learning the language from the respective country is the fastest way to do it. furthermore, i feel that studying in a whole new environment is very exciting.

so. does anyone know any language schools, courses in japan that teaches japanese from scratch? like lets say, for students who want to study in japan universities, providing crash course to learn and pick up the language?

Going to Japan to learn Japanese is kind of a silly reason. You can learn Japanese outside of Japan. Going there isn't going to make learning it any easier. Plus, with it being pretty easy to "get by" with English in Japan, it makes the whole "immersion" thing pretty difficult.

Tell you what, since you're starting from scratch, try learning Japanese where you're at first. If you have the internet, you have access to many things Japanese.

Here's the steps:

0. Get tons of Japanese music, dramas, anime, whatever, and play and watch them all the time. Rip the audio from your anime and dramas and play them on your iPod all the time. Put audio books on your iPod and listen. Put jPop on your ipod. Basically, always be watching and listening to Japanese all the time. By the way, if your anime or dramas have English subtitles, cover them up or remove them if you've seen them once already or know the plot. Do this through out all the next steps.

1. Learn Kanji (well, just 2042) - by learn though, just worry about the basic meaning and how to write and recognize them. Use [url]kanji.koohii.com[/url] to help in this step. This takes about 150 to 250 hours, so 3 hours a day of study can take you 3 months for this step.

1a. When you done with Kanji learn both the Kana. This should take you 6 hours.

PS: You're still watching anime, dramas, Japanese news, music videos, right?

2. Learn Grammar using example sentences. Use www.guidetojapanese.org for the lessons and the grammar. Use the sentences in an SRS from [url]ichi2.net/anki[/url]. As this is about 700 sentences, this shouldn't take you more than a month or two (Japanese grammar is not complicated to learn, just complicated to use it naturally). By the way, you'll be doing this using Kanji

Still watching Japanese stuff, right? By this time, you should be watching new stuff using just Japanese subtitles. Throw in mangas now (preferably with furigana), as you know kanji to the point to get meaning from the stories. While you're at it, download Skype, and call up some Japanese people for a "language exchange".

3. Learn Vocabulary using www.iknow.co.jp. Remember to write out the example sentence once, then the vocabulary word each time it comes up for review. The 6000 to 10000 words can take you up to a year.

By this time, you've probably changed up the steps and process to fit yourself. You did all this in the comfort of your own country. Now, after a year or 18 months, you have a grasp of Japanese that should exceed people with traditional four years of college.

Really, it's a matter of consistent study (adding new vocabulary everyday), and listening to Japanese A LOT.

A great site to visit to help with motivations, techniques and other info is www.alljapaneseallthetime.com

Now, does the above look impossible? Cause really, you're going to be doing similar if you pay thousands of dollars to move to Japan and do an immersion school (assuming you even stick with it). Prior to the internet, yeah, that made sense. Now, the amount of Japanese material available to learn from is astounding. It's a matter of getting it into a coherent format to learn from.

Basically, you ARE in the best immersion available (close to home, cheap, you set the hours).

Uh, aren't their existing thread(s) you could've asked this question?

Nukemarine wrote:

Some stuff...

While some of your advice is sound, much of it is terribly incorrect in terms of second language acquisition theory.

Watching anime/drama and listening to Japanese music right from the get-go could actually be more of a hindrance than help. Japanese spoken on TV (and ESPECIALLY in anime) is not the best way to go about learning Japanese. Not only is anime Japanese significantly different than everyday spoken Japanese, it's much harder to learn grammatical functions when they're slurred or spoken in slang.

Learning a language also requires interactive feedback; that is, when I say something or hear something, I need to hear a response from the other party that has relevance to what I just said/wrote/heard. There was a study of a boy who had two deaf parents (yet wasn't born deaf himself), and after spending 4 years having only the television as his example of spoken language, his language skills were severely lacking, not to mention very peculiar.

Getting books (such as Genki! or other textbooks) that come with either audio tapes (especially made for learning Japanese) or computer learning programs are by far the best option for learning any language. Don't get me wrong, Japanese music and dramas may be a great supplementary tool to the main tool being used for learning, but they should be avoided as one's main source of learning Japanese.

Lastly, suggesting that someone learn Hiragana and Katakana AFTER learning kanji is just plain bad advice, as is suggesting that one could learn all 1945 joyo kanji in only three months.
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kokuou wrote:

Other Stuff

My advice was not to learn from anime, or music, or dramas. My advice was to always be watching and listening to it. Trying to learn solely from such a tactic would take 5 years or more, and the product would be horrendous. However, by listening and watching native material you will begin seeing things from your formal studies start popping up.

It's one of those "big picture" things, where you have to doing many things that congeal over time.

For the interactive feedback, you bring up a very bad counter example. There, you have a child with his first language. I'm giving advice on the assumption you've mastered your native language. That gives a good stepping stone for the next language. Plus, I did recommend Skype to get you talking to natives for good feedback.

Language tapes and books are not the best ways to learn a language. They're great at getting mediocre fast should they prove to be your primary learning tool. You end up with these oh so common "I can speak ok, but I can't listen too well" when the reality is "You can't speak well, and your listening sucks worse". You hamstrung yourself by listening only to audio tapes spoken at slow speeds and dialogue that's unnatural that's not found anywhere outside that textbook (even if you make minor content changes).

At least you agree that music and drama make great supplements to what you're learning. I think in reality it becomes a head fake. You think they're supplements. You learn grammar rules (with good sample sentences), and learn vocabulary (with good sample sentences). Now, with your favorite drama or music video you notice these things you just learned. Bang, reinforcement of what you learned with something you enjoy. The studying is actually an essential supplement to the immersion.

Here's a basic thought exercise: Three people: Two guys doing 4 years of Japanese (30 credit hours). One guy does self study. One does just class work, and at home the addition 2 hours per 1 hour of class, studying books and doing drills. Beyond those 15 hours a week, he watches American movies and American books or English subtitled anime and dramas. The other guy does the same studying (2:1), but instead watches only unsubbed (or Subbed in japanese) dramas, anime, websites, music, news, etc as much as he can. The third guy does 3 hours of self studying a day but other than that watches only Japanese stuff like guy number 2.

I'll argue, that guys 2 and 3 will be at the same level in 4 years (native fluency). Guy 1 will be like most Japanese language graduates that can't order anything at Mosburger at native level. Guy 3 just spent a lot less money than the other two.

It's a thought experiment, but that supplementary material is MANDATORY. You need native level input to constantly push yourself. Depending on "designed for learners" material is dangerous cause that book does not know your level. With native material, that's the DESTINATION. If it is pushing you the whole time, you know you're not there yet till you get that 90% comprehension. Plus, reading and listening material "designed for learners" are BORING. I don't think I'll see "Adventures of Yan" from Learning Japanese series anytime on the top 500 drama list.

For Kanji, learning it first is great advice. You just disagree with it. The recognition, writing and basic understanding of all 1945 Jouyou kanji can be learned by one of moderate intelligence in roughly 200 hours. So 8 hours a day dedicated solely to that can get you done in a month. Two to three hours a day get you done in three months. After all that, learning something as simple as kana will be nothing. Now, obviously you have not "learned" the kanji in that you don't have vocabulary words or the associated On or Kun pronunciations. However, you have an important tool to learning native material with the crutch of full kana sentences or *shudder* Romaji.

If it makes you feel better, learn kana first. Six hours at the beginning or end of 250 hours is not a big deal either way.

PS: When it comes to language theory and results, I tend to lean toward results.

kokuou wrote:

Watching anime/drama and listening to Japanese music right from the get-go could actually be more of a hindrance than help.

That is so true! For example, just above every song I've ever heard for "ashita" they always stretch it out pronouncing it more like "asheeta" There's lots of other examples as well. Used to drive me crazy.