I hope you are doing good!
So, today's topic is "How to choose a Japanese Language School."
I know a lot of you are trying to find the right school for you and it's not always easy. This is my own advice on how to choose a Japanese Language School.
There's 4 things that you should take in account:
The City
Where do you want to live in Japan? Most people choose Tokyo, but there's a lot of school all around Japan so you might prefer to stay in Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sapporo, etc. Living in a smaller city will give you less chance to speak english which is basically a good thing. It can be a scary thing for you as well. However, this is not the most important point. You might not have a precise idea of where you want to be and that's totally fine as well!
Your Budget
Coming to study in a Japanese Language school is not cheap. Living in Japan is pretty expensive as well. The rent is the most expensive thing I think. So, if you choose a smaller city, the rent will be less expensive as well. Except for the rent, living in Japan is not too bad if you're not spending too much on things you don't need. (But let's be true here, it's pretty hard to resist lol). Tuition fees and the price of the rent should be one of the first thing you check! How much can you pay for rent? Not all schools offers dorm (Actually there's only two or three I think), so you should take this in account as well.
Your Goal
This is probably the most important point. Why do you want to come to Japan? Why do you want to study Japanese? What do you want to do after? You should ask yourself this question and this will help you find the thing that are important for you. It will help you find the right school for you.
The duration of your stay
You should think about this as well. How long do you want to stay? Some people come for 3 months to see if they like Japan/ the school and then come back later.
Because there IS a possibility that Japan might not be the land of your dream like you thought. It happened to a lot of people (Me included I'd say). It's not about having some weird ideas that Japan is perfect and stuffs like that, but you do have a lot of expectations before coming and often, these expectations aren't true. No matter how prepare you are, there's always unexpected thing. I know it's a thing that a lot of people tend to forget (me too), but you shouldn't forget about this.
And I don't want to scare you of something, but it does happen more than you can think. But in the contrary, a lot of people also fell in love with Japan and want to stay here for a long time.
Something else that I didn't mention as well: not all school accept students every 3 months! Pay attention to this as well :)
When this will be over, you should be able to choose a few school before choosing the one. :)
I'll tell you how I choose Akamonkai.
City: Tokyo or Yokohama.
Budget: Small budget
Goal: To be able to translate Japanese. Also, to be able to go to a lot of concerts.
Duration of your stay: 1 year.
None of the school in Yokohama pleased me, so I looked at all the school in Tokyo. I ended up choosing between KAI and Akamonkai. KAI was more focused on the conversation while Akamonkai was more focus on the JLPT/EJU exams. Also, Akamonkai was in a less expensive part of Tokyo and was the only one that had dorms. It was also the cheapest one in Tokyo. That's how I decided to choose Akamonkai.
If I had to go back to Canada and then come back, I'd probably choose the Fukukoa Foreign Language College because it looks pretty nice :)
That's it for today! If you have any questions, don't hesitate and comments here or on my youtube channel! (Or Twitter as well)
Thanks for reading!
