Studying Japanese at the Yamasa Institute in Okazaki, Japan

I had just graduated from college with a degree in Japanese and a dream to become a translator. However, everything I read told me that to break into the world of translating I would have to be quite fluent in Japanese, with the equivalence of many years of living in Japan, studying and speaking Japanese. I had only been to the country once, to study for four months at Kansai Gaikokugo Daigaku in Hirakata, and I knew that, despite the degree, I was far from fluent. And so, in October of 2007, I journeyed again to Japan, this time with a plan to study six months at a dedicated Japanese language institute. Research online had led me to believe that the Yamasa Institute, of Okazaki, Japan, would allow me to boost my fluency considerably in the short time that I could stay, and for a reasonable price. For spiritual reasons, I cut my stay short and returned home after 6 weeks of study, realizing that translation was not my call after all. However, those six weeks did afford me an enjoyable stay in Japan and a hands-on experience with the institute so that I can share the realities of the school to prospective students wondering just what might have been left off of the (rather in-depth, in English, anyway) website. Reviews and pictures are, after all, published on the website by people wanting to draw others to their school and may be the slightest bit biased.

The English version of the website for the Yamasa Institute (www.yamasa.org) has so much information that it takes days to wade through. I will start by giving an overview of the academics. The institute offers a myriad of options for people to study for any amount of time from 2 weeks to 2 years, at varying intensity levels and with focuses on conversation, grammar, reading, and writing. They also offer private lessons. I selected the Academic Intensive Japanese Program, or AIJP. The AIJP is a quarterly program running for just under three months to allow those who must come on a 90 day tourist visa to study well within their legally permitted stay. It is, as the name implies, and intensive program focusing on all areas of the language.

The classes are taught by rotating groups of teachers. My class had five teachers, 4 women and one man. (Male teachers are few and far between at Yamasa.) After the placement tests, students are grouped according to their proficiency. The written test is mostly concerned with grammar and very predictable and doable for anyone who has taken much Japanese before. You simply go on until you can no longer understand the questions. After that you have an oral interview in which your speaking ability is measured, and again, you simply talk, with the interviewer progressively speaking faster and asking more in depth and vocabulary laden questions until you no longer understand. The classes are ranked by alphabet, with those in the A class being the most proficient students of the quarter, and so on down the list. I think there were classes down to P or so, the lowest class consisting of those who had never studied Japanese before. I was in class E. Although the level of the A class one quarter may be different from that of the A class the next quarter, depending on the level of the students, they are usually those who have taken or are studying for the JLPT level 1 test. Everyone in my class was studying for the level 2 test.

I had expected to arrive, take the tests, and then start classes within a fairly short period of time. I arrived two days before the testing, as they advised on their website, because I was crossing quite a few time zones coming from America. However, it turns out that my tests were on a later date, the commencement ceremony an even later date, and the actual beginning of class a week after I had arrived. This served to give a lot of down time and exploration of the city, and I suppose for someone who had never been to Japan before, or who had a relatively low proficiency level, the week-long adjustment period might have been welcome. For me, it was a long, drawn out time and by the weekend before classes, even those who had never been to Japan before were anxious for classes to start so that they would have something to do. Another thing that I hadn't realized before going was that the electives don't start until two weeks into the classes, to allow students to transition. I hadn't learned this on the website (which I scoured for information before going).

Back to the classes themselves. You have a sort of homeroom teacher, who teaches most of your morning grammar classes and some of your afternoon classes. She (or, rarely, he) is the "leader" of your group of teachers. We had one teacher, the male, only once, for the two afternoon classes on Mondays. Another teacher we had once, and the other two we had a couple times. Even so, we quickly got to know the teachers and their personalities. They were wonderful. After having studied at Kansai Gaidai, where all but the Japanese classes were in English and not really about the language, attending classes with like-minded, driven individuals and teachers who spoke only in Japanese to us and spurred us along in an intensive course of study was like heaven. The testing had placed me perfectly, in my opinion. There were seven people in my class (small, compared to most of the other classes there); two from France, one from Sweden, one from Australia, one from Hong-Kong, and one from Taiwan. Four males, three females. A wonderful mix. As the website says, the student body is truly diverse.

I was disappointed with the elective offerings, however. First was the unexpected delayed start. Next was the range. Because the JLPT tests were going to be held near the end of the quarter, most of the electives were geared towards the tests. For someone like myself, who was not going to take the test, there was very little else to take, simply because the electives not geared towards the test were all very low level electives teaching kanji, vocabulary, and grammar that I already knew. All of the upper level electives were study for the JLPT test, except on upper level business Japanese. I ended up taking three conversation courses and one vocabulary course. Each elective is held once a week, with nothing on Fridays. You can have up to two electives per day, which means that you could have two short days and two long days if you like. After the first vocabulary class I realized that it would be rather pointless for me, since I knew 90% of the words already (the teacher passed out a sheet of what we were going to study each week). The conversation classes were slightly more useful, since I regard conversation as my weakest point, but were still only so-so in that I had to practice with people who, being mostly from lower levels, could not be expected to know the grammar and vocabulary that I used. The electives were pretty laid back, though, and even though I didn't learn much from them, were okay.

Finances and business matters were handled well, as long as you spoke enough Japanese to talk to the office staff. I acted as an interpreter for many English-speaking friends who did not know enough Japanese to ask about tuition, visas, housing matters, or other various things themselves. I understand the concept of immersion, but I also empathize with my frustrated friends who simply needed someone to speak to them in English about these rather important matters.

I had quite an experience with the visas, and this is perhaps my most important warning. For those planning on studying for two quarters on two tourist visas, be fore-warned: it is not as easy as they make it sound. I applied first for the student visa, hoping to study for six months. I heard nothing back from the school, even weeks after we were supposed to get a response. I finally emailed asking about the status of my application, and they returned an email apologizing because, although my application was acceptable and they had admitted me to the school, the fact that I had studied the previous year at a different school on an exchange student visa meant that I could under no conditions get a student visa from the government. Which is all fine and good, I suppose, but the fact that they hadn't contacted me to tell me any of this puzzled me. Still desiring to attend, however, I remembered that the website had said that it is possible for students to attend on two consecutive tourist visas, and I emailed them asking if that was an option. They said yes, so long as I left the country for at least 3 days during the break. It would have been expensive for me to return to America, jarring jet-lag-wise, and a major interruption in my studies, so I decided to go to Seoul, South Korea. I had to plan to go for two weeks, however, because you aren't allowed to stay in Yamasa housing longer than a few days before and after your quarter of study, and the break between the quarters was almost three weeks. This added a couple thousand dollars to my study expenses.

The biggest shock regarding the visa happened during the orientation session, however. We were told that we had to, effectively, lie to be able to return on a visa a second time within such a short period. We were advised to fly into a different part of Japan, or claim that we were coming back so soon after one session of study to go backpacking or visit friends that we had made in the previous three months. The fact of the matter is that the website and the repeated emails I received from Yamasa had assured me that there is no problem with studying two times on a tourist visa. They never mentioned that we were expected to mislead the authorities at the airport to be able to do so. They never said that the likelihood of being turned away was something to be seriously concerned about and plan for. The tone of the website and the answer to direct questions that I emailed them was decidedly reassuring; yes, you can do it, people do it, you'll be fine. If you are planning to try this, be forewarned that it might not all go as smoothly as you are made to believe.

The last thing I will touch upon is the student housing. Because I desired a roommate and computers on-site, I choose the Student Village, a dorm-type housing option. (The others have internet access, but you must bring your own computer). The pictures on the website portray a gleaming, clean, spacious residence with a community of students in a comfortable living area. The reality is different.

The Student Village is dirty. The showers are grimy and moldy. The kitchen walls are caked with grease. The counters are often sticky, crummy, grimy, or worse. The refrigerators, those that work, are dirty and smell bad. The rice cookers are ancient and very scratched. The frying pans are also scratched. The knives they provide are dull and hardly cut. The two washing machines (one, actually, because one was out of order for the whole time I was there, 6 weeks at least and never repaired) are lint-filled and dirty. The only clean place in the building is your own room, and only because you have the responsibility to clean it. You are given some shelf space for your own cooking utensils and ingredients; I would recommend keeping anything worth over 5 dollars or so in your room, inconvenient as it is to carry it each time you want to use it to the kitchen and back, because theft was a real problem. Not only utensils, but food. I was lucky to get a shelf with a door that closed, so that my things were not on open display; I kept the most valuable things (the rice cooker I bought, the knives) in my room. I kept most produce in my room (fruit is very expensive in Japan). They say the Village is a little more expensive, but is balanced by the fact that you don't have to buy your own kitchen supplies. It is true, only if you don't mind using dirty, scratched, dull supplies. The most disgusting thing was when the landlady would take out the recycling and trash. Now, for those of you who don't know, Japan has a very extensive recycling program which allows for almost everything to be recycled, and you must adhere to this program. The Student Village has a large turnover of students and so there are often people who don't know all the rules about which of the 8 or so trash cans to place their specific garbage in. There are many mistakes. To encourage students not to make mistakes, the landlady places everything that has been thrown into the wrong trash can onto the kitchen counter. Where people are supposed to prepare their food. Trash, on the counter, where people are to prepare their food. Yes, I repeated it because it is shocking and unsafe. One day I came to the kitchen to find a bloody female sanitary pad on the counter. Suffice it to say that I never let food that I was going to eat, cooked or not, touch the counter. Ever.

You are allowed to watch the televisions in the two lounges, but you are not allowed to play video games on them. The landlady explained that that rule was so that people wouldn't take up the television for hours while others were waiting to watch something. Movies were fine, however, a paradox that didn't make sense to me or my friends. Add to this the fact that there was no one else in the lounge, let alone waiting to use the television, when we were told that we were to stop playing video games, and you can understand the frustration. Bringing friends into the building, let alone your room, is discouraged. You are not allowed to have anyone stay the night. The village was more than half empty when I arrived and yes, there were people from a variety of countries staying there, but most kept to themselves and immersed themselves in study. This makes sense, of course, because most people staying there are there for only a short period of time, not to make friends. I was blessed, however, with a roommate also there for long term study. She was from Taiwan, and she was wonderful. She spoke no English, and I no Chinese, but her class level was D, and mine E, so our Japanese was very compatible. I was also lucky enough to get the room on the end of the hall, which is twice the size of every other room in the building. Most people living in the apartment-style housing have cleaner living spaces, but those that I talked to in class reported being very lonely. I would balance your ability to put up with a filthy living space with just how much you want to come into daily contact with people, even if they are reclusive and you only meet them in the kitchen. Once classes start, you do of course get to know more people, but the housing options are rather spread out around the campus, so unless you are in class with someone who also happens to live quite close (or you don't mind walking/riding your bike for upwards of 20 minutes to visit people), you might be lonely living alone.

All told, the academics at the school were wonderful. I enjoyed classes very much, learned a lot, and would recommend the school on those grounds. As for housing, I would be wary, and not trust the pictures or testimonials on the website. Be cautious when planning to study on two separate student visas and, if your Japanese is not at a very high level, be prepared for frustration with the office staff. But, if you truly desire to improve your Japanese, go.

I will write another article soon about the surrounding areas and living in Okazaki, apart from the institute itself.