Yamasa Review

Life in Japan,

There are a few reviews of The Yamasa Institute on the Internet, so I thought I’d write my own. I wanted to be anonymous on the Internet, but I guess it’s a bit hard to write about life that way. Here are some reviews of Yamasa that I found during a quick Google search:

Even though two of them are quite old, I think they’re general enough that they still apply. It’s interesting that with all the things that have changed in the past 10 years, certain things seem to stay the same. I’m not sure if this review will be helpful because I can’t compare it to other language schools, and I’m the type of person who is mostly fine with bad and good alike. Also, I will not be able to write everything in a single post so read my future posts for a better idea (if I get around to them). I will try to expand on each topic because I have opinions and experiences for all of them.

Decision and Application

Decide as soon as possible! If you’re reading this, you’re probably still deciding which school you want to study at (or not; maybe you just randomly found this page). The application process takes several months (5 months is the deadline, so start applying 6 months before). This is due to immigration procedures mostly, but it might take a few weeks to ask questions, fill out forms and make sure all documents are submitted to Yamasa. That’s for the Student Visa though, so if you’re going on a tourist visa or working holiday visa (my working holiday visa was approved in a week in Australia), you apply maybe 2 or 3 months in advance. If you’re in a hurry for some reason, it doesn’t hurt to ask because unlike the Immigration Bureau, Yamasa can override their own deadlines (I haven’t heard of it, just saying it’s a possibility).

That said, don’t make a hasty decision, but just be aware of the time frames. The Student Visa starts in April and October, however you can come for 3 months on a tourist visa first and start in January or July. I’m not sure if you can get a Student visa starting in January or July because some of the other schools implied that you can, and the Immigration Bureau doesn’t mention that you can’t. It was annoying from a planning point of view because if I could get the student visa starting in January, then I could have come 3 months earlier. I’m done with it so I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Also note that in Japan, April is the start of the school year. It’s more important than I thought. It’s not just schools, but companies hire for April and even the financial year starts in April.

There is much to say about motivation and your reason for studying Japanese in Japan but I’ll leave that for another time. I’ll just say to be realistic and know yourself.

Location

Yamasa is in Okazaki, Aichi. It’s quite quiet, but also decent sized city. Nagoya is half an hour on the express train but I don’t go there since it costs about 700 yen each way. Tokyo is a bit far and expensive to go to. Do not take the Shinkansen. Although it’s fast, it costs maybe 10,000 yen each way. Taking a bus costs about 3000-4000 yen each way (plus the train fare to get to Nagoya) and takes about 5 hours. During certain seasons you can catch the local trains using the Seishun 18 ticket which is about 10,000 yen for 5 daily tickets (on one physical ticket). The local trains also take about 5 hours. There is a night train but you have to book it in advance because it sells out. I’m not an expert so consult other sites for more information. Sometimes the Shinkansen can save you a night of accommodation so it might not be so bad after all.

Kyoto is a bit close and Osaka is slightly closer than Tokyo. It’s a bit strange being right in the middle of the biggest cities, yet everything being just a bit far. Ski mountains are also within range, including Nagano.

Spare Time

I’m not the party type, so I don’t need to be right in the middle of Tokyo. Actually, I’m glad I’m not in Tokyo because I would feel that it’s a waste that I never go out. You don’t really have time to go out anyway, since school is 5 days a week with homework. I don’t know if I have enough time for a job either. However, there is plenty of time if you manage your time well and you probably know better what you are capable of.

Classes are usually 9am to 2:30pm (1:30pm on Fridays) but could vary depending on your electives and private lessons and higher levels might have a different timetable. There are 24 classes a week (50 min each which equals 20 hours). I think that’s a bit more than other schools which are usually around 20 classes.

There are few holidays. I guess it makes your money worth it. There are many public holidays that the school doesn’t take, and in between terms there are only about 2 weeks of holidays. If you’re used to getting a long break somewhere in the year, this adds to the “intensiveness” of the course. The Summer holiday does not line up with the normal August school holiday. I guess I can’t expect there to be a holiday that lines up with certain events (e.g. Summer Comiket), although a weekend trip is always possible, although slightly expensive, and travelling takes quite a bit of time so you can’t do it too often.

Student Mix

This is actually one of the deciding factors in my choice to study at Yamasa, albeit not an obvious one. Many other schools have large proportions of Chinese and Taiwanese (and Koreans). I thought about it, and realised that I would be different from the other students in not knowing kanji. The teachers would not be able cater to students who didn’t know kanji as effectively as a school like Yamasa. The disadvantage of non-kanji students is that most speak English to so it’s not total immersion. I think it was a good decision in the end, and has the added benefit that it eases the transition and you can make friends a lot more easily, which greatly increases your enjoyment so you don’t feel alone and wanting to drop out. If you are dedicated enough to do Anki every day with Heisig’s Remember the Kanji and learn 2000 kanji in 4 months, you’ll be fine studying with Chinese speakers, however that is a huge task in itself (I did it for 2 weeks and stopped, and still want to do it but never do). That said, at those schools you will be on the same level as Koreans and might make some Korean friends and end up wanting to learn Korean instead of Japanese. Really. Jokes aside, it can happen so you’d better be sure what you want to do. Edit: Korean has the same grammar as Japanese so…

Academic Program

The course is intensive. I had already learned Japanese for five years and watched anime for 15 years before coming here. However, I was still put in the absolute beginner class, 101. I was a bit disappointed at first, but I thought, hey, I can take it easy for a while and brush up on details. After a week or so, I realised that it was quite challenging and perfect for my level. I have no idea what I learned in those five years long ago, but I didn’t really know as much as I thought I did. I thought maybe they tuned the class to suit our current level, but we started at Chapter 1 of Minna no Nihongo and finished at 20 and it doesn’t seem like it could be any different since they have to connect it with the 102 class.

If you know absolutely no Japanese, expect to repeat 101. Well, I can’t really tell since my circumstances were different, but it will definitely be full-on. We learnt hiragana and katakana in about 2 days (although we all already knew them anyway). When I learnt them years ago, it took about 2 years to learn, although that was only 2 classes a week and we learned other things alongside it. If you have to learn hiragana and katakana, you’ll be struggling with reading and writing in addition to learning the vocab and grammar. You’ll instantly be on the back foot and will always be playing catch-up. It’s one thing knowing the symbols, but it’s another thing to read and write them like second nature. Take a look at Minna no Nihongo for a good idea of what the course is like. There is no roomaji anywhere. We cover a chapter in about 2 days, plus a lot of supplementary material and conversation practice.

Teaching

Probably the most important thing? I’m not sure whether I can review this properly but I’ll describe it a little. There are several teachers for a single level, about 5 different teachers, each teaching about 2 lessons in a row. Each has his or her own style and personality. You tend to prefer some teachers over others but variety is nice as well because it keeps things interesting. I have yet to see any grumpy or tired teachers. It helps keep me motivated to keep up my end when I haven’t had enough sleep. I guess that’s a good thing.

Student Services

They are generally quite helpful, and there are two people who speak English (that I know of), although you should be trying to speak Japanese as much as possible. There’s something a little bit strange, but often there’s a missing detail in information. Something that makes me confused, but what I’m given is just enough to get by. It might just be that I’m new to a foreign country and they don’t think to explain something they take for granted, or maybe it’s lost in translation. I’ll give some examples, and they are all unique.

  • Can I get the Student Visa in January? This is more Immigration’s fault for not being clear, but it could be Yamasa sticking to what they’ve always been doing for years and not testing whether it can be done.
  • When does school start? The website has the date, and it says to arrive a few days before that (although I didn’t notice that amongst all the other information). There was no orientation or information before I arrived other than what I read on the website. The acceptance package included a page in Japanese, which was totally useless since I didn’t know Japanese. Well, it had the number of classes and my accommodation preferences, but I wanted to know which one I was in! I didn’t know which apartment I was in until after I arrived. After I arrived, the orientation was quite simple and I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know. We weren’t told of the start date of the next term until the last day of the previous term. It’s not the date listed on the site because existing students don’t have to do the orientation day. I didn’t even know there was an orientation day before I came.
  • Where do I throw out my cans? I was supplied with a nice trash guide. It should have been enough. Except that the picture didn’t say where to put other items like cans. I saw other areas with baskets that appear on the trash day, but I couldn’t find them for my trash point. Eventually I realised that we have bins, which are a lot nicer, and they change colours depending on the type of trash that is being collected (not the same colour as the baskets are supposed to be). Someone I asked at student services pointed to the non-burnables place in the picture, which was wrong. I guess it’s not her fault because she’s probably never even seen the apartments in person. Oh yeah, I didn’t get a new trash calendar for the year starting April 2014. I downloaded it myself from the council site.
  • How do I get my Health Insurance? They were helpful helping me to fill out the forms, which I had to do in Japanese even though I wasn’t supposed to have known any. I had to go myself, and it would have been hard if I didn’t have a Japanese speaker with me. They did better for the April batch of students, taking everyone in a bus. They informed the students only 2 days before the trip (but of course, everyone was free anyway). I shouldn’t be so critical because they probably had to organise a lot of visas before they could confirm the trip. But it’s little things like that that come up unexpectedly.
  • Bank account, mobile phone? Not a word mentioned, even though from the website it seemed like a standard thing everyone does. You can ask them yourself, and I’m sure they’ll gladly help. I think it’s better that they didn’t do anything because the phone company and bank I want to use are probably different from the one they recommend. Also they are completely optional.
  • The website is out of date and has broken links. This is more because their website maintainer left last year (or so I heard from another student). But anyway, this is a more general problem that Japanese websites are all from 2003. You know how Geocities was shut down? Not in Japan. This is a topic for further discussion, but in the meantime, read about Galápagos syndrome.

I think what my experience has been is mostly “if you don’t ask, you won’t know” and “if you ask, you’ll get answers that look good but later you find out it doesn’t answer it satisfactorily”.

Anyway, I’ll explain more in other posts, but that’s it for now.

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