Learning Japanese in Japan..
 

I was never into the Japanese culture but my interest has been growing since last year because of my interaction with Asian people in my day-to-day job. They're so different and fascinating. I started to learn Japanese language on my own, but its going very slow because my time is very limited and I'm working in a place where I don't speak the country language (French) very fluently and learning a new language where I have trouble with the native one, its not a good investment.

To speed up the learning process and to see if I would really like to live/work in Japan, I'm considering of going to there to learn Japanese for at least 6 months and see the culture in person, all alone.

I think that joining a school shouldn't be too hard. My biggest concern is getting a roof. I have read in the forum that this is very hard for a foreigner.

Do you think this would be too difficult to accomplish? or if it even makes sense? Money would probably not be a problem but I wouldn't want to spend a fortune.

My budget would be around 100.000 yen per month. (house/room, food, and school fees and other stuff for transports, etc). Is this enough?

I'm really interested in seeing the Japanese culture up close and I have other options to go there but they would be somewhat taking a step back. (like doing another master degree with a Monbukagakusho scholarship :rolleyes: . Also I can't find anything interesting in Computer Graphics for a master degree)

Thanks for reading and for any replies.

I think it would be near impossible to pay for school AND rent for 100,000 per month. A school could easily cost that much on it's own, and depending where you live, so could rent (thought that would be a little luxurious).

That's a lot, I had no idea that a Language School in Japan would be so expensive.

You need to look around, but how much do you think full time school costs?

I would say ~200,000-300,000 per 6 months. I will do more research on this, but removing the school tuition, 100k should be ok for living, even in tokyo, I think!

I'm comparing with Geneva, which is pretty expensive(housing and food) for European lifestyle. My housing standards in Japan would be a room or a very small studio.

Removing tuition, you should be able to survive on 100,000 yen a month. I say "survive" as there will be little left over for fun stuff.

Here is tuition for one school in Tokyo

Duration Registration Tuition Total
4 weeks \21,000 \74,800 \95,800
6 weeks \21,000 \112,200 \133,200
8 weeks \21,000 \149,600 \170,600
12 weeks \21,000 \179,000 \200,000

SJI-Japanese Language Course - Learn Japanese in Tokyo

I've always wondered how people can pay for school, housing, necessities, etc. All without a student visa, jobless.

Can someone explain this to me?

Your Japanese school should be able to give you a cultural visa. Costs can be cut by going to a school outside of Tokyo. When I moved to Japan I attended Japanese school full time. The school cost about 35,000/month, rent at a cheap gaijin house was 50,000/month and food was 30,000/month. This was many years ago but I think you can still do it for that price. Of course you will have no social life but if your purpose is to learn the language then it is good to focus on that.

In my case, I work and have been putting some money aside. I consider this an investment in my life.

Have you looked at Apple Language Schools?

Japanese language school in Tokyo, Japan