The end of my studies at GenkiJACS is near. I am going to finish in two weeks. It's time to summarize my experience.

I was very lucky in the beginning. I was in a class with people who had real interest in learning Japanese and challenged me every day to get better. Most of them had already some knowledge of the language which made me work really hard. The first three months were amazing. I got solid foundations in Japanese that I use every day.

After forced three weeks break I came back to school and found it extremely crowded. Most of my classmates were gone. For a few weeks new classmates were coming and going and the progress was stalled. It seemed that first two weeks we didn't do any progress at all. It got better later on, but I felt like we are not learning enough, because we didn't get as much practice.

I wanted to finish the Genki 2 textbook and I calculated that I am more than 3 weeks short. I decided to jump to a higher class in the middle of the second term. I also didn't get along with some of the new classmates. Fortunately in the higher class, all of the students had real interest in learning the language again and they were all better than me, forcing me to push myself again. The class also got smaller giving me room to breath.

Here's a list of what went well, what didn't and what I really didn't like:

 

The Good

• Teachers - Certainly the teachers and the staff. Everybody was very helpful and tried to entertain everybody. Which was not always good as covered in "The Bad".
• Progress - I made remarkable progress from having zero knowledge to being able to  communicate with Japanese people. Even though I make a lot of mistakes, I can have a conversation about daily life.
• Textbook and materials - The textbook is well organized and the extra materials and bonus grammar covered by the school proved useful.
• Location - The school is in the city center, easy to commute.
• Accommodation - Even though the apartment was really small, it offered comfortable stay for six months.

 

The Bad

• Grammar was not practiced enough - We learned new grammar, practiced it for a week and moved to a new chapter. While in the beginning this was fine, because I use the foundations every day, later I easily forgot what I learned two weeks ago. The difficult grammar is not used as often in daily conversation.
• You can join the school with any level of knowledge at any time of the year - Why was this bad? Selfish reasons only. Especially later on, there were students of various levels and from different backgrounds in the same class. Some of them got bored, while others had troubles keeping up.
• Some teachers didn't use Kanji when writing on whiteboard and wrote everything in Hiragana - therefore we didn't practice Kanji as much as we could have. Maybe this was partly caused by the point above. I kept reminding them.
• Summer holidays - The school was crowded during summer holidays. High school and university students flooded GenkiJACS. The website claims that classes are limited to a maximum of 7 students, and usually have around 4, giving you plenty of chance to practice with the teacher. During summer the usual was 6 to 7 and I have been in class with 8 students more than once. Some of the classrooms are not big enough for six people. During the two summer months, I never had enough space. The lounge was often packed and there was no room to sit.
• No windows - The classrooms have no windows, only air conditioners. The rooms were created by splitting a big room into smaller ones. Some of the rooms ended up with a huge airconditioner and they were either freezing or hot. And of course there was no fresh air.

 

Summary

I liked the school, especially the first three months. I never had so much fun learning a language from a scratch as in GenkiJACS and I believe they taught me well. However the second term was not as much fun. Some of the fun teachers teach only the Beginner 1 and I really missed them in the second term. The progress was not as smooth as before and I also didn't get along with some classmates. I don't get annoyed easily and I did get annoyed in GenkiJACS in summer more than I would like.

The decision to jump to higher class seems like a good idea now, but I spent tough three weeks studying in the new class while trying to catch up. It's over now. Two more weeks to go and I think I am going to enjoy the school again.

Fukuoka is a nice place to be, but everybody said this year's weather was worse than usual. We got a lot of rain and only a couple of weeks of beach weather. It was better here in spring than it is now in summer and I am hoping for nice indian summer.

I'd choose GenkiJACS again if I could study in spring and I'd probably pay for at least one extra private lesson per week to go through last week's grammar to make up for the lack of practice.

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Genki 1 by The Japan Times is a textbook that my language school GenkiJACS uses to teach Japanese to beginners. The book expects you to know hiragana while katana and kanji are not required. Genki contains a hiragana table, but you won't be able to learn anything without being proficient in hiragana. You will gradually learn katakana by using Japanese words that originated from English and the book teaches Kanji with extra vocabulary.

The book si very well organized and the school doesn't deviate much from the course set by the book. It teaches basic grammar first, but each chapter contain listening and reading parts, too. At school, the speaking excercises are done as well. There are a few things I don't like about the book, but they are just really minor nitpicks. For example once a special case of a rule was added as new grammar and later explained fully. However this style is good for people who want to learn only some parts of the language.

The intensive course covers about 1 chapter per week which feels like an ideal pace. The first book contains 12 chapters. While studying with Genki I had a feeling for very long time that I can't use any Japanese. However around chapter 8, I suddenly started to feel that I can communicate with the Japanese people. It all somehow clicked together at that time.

Genki at GenkiJACS

The school is using both Genki books, Genki 1 and Genki 2. There are also workbooks available for both the first and the second book, but we don't have them and we are using photocopies and other excercises created by the teachers. The answer key is of course available as well, if you want to spoil your study...

If you are planning to study at GenkiJACS I can highly recommend getting at least the first book and study the first 3 chapters yourself. They are very easy and it will save you 3 weeks of relatively easy topics.

While studying Japanese, one needs a nice place to rest, recharge and do homework. GenkiJACS provides accommodation as well. It is optional, but it made everything much easier for me. I picked a private apartment, because for six months study it was only 53,000 JPY per month and I needed my own space for work.

There are of course other options available and you can read about them on GenkiJACS website. From other schoolmates experience, I can say that homestay can be both good and bad. The website claims 40 mins from school on average, but you can end up an hour bus ride far as well. But of course you have the option to speak Japanese every day with the family. Note that host family is sometimes just one person.

Dorm is good for people who like to hangout with other foreigners and I would definitely pick it for shorter stay. I only know one person who stayed in shared apartment. The upside was that it was in the same building as the school. The downside - it was noisy, small and of course you have no say in who will live with you.

My apartment is quite small, but it has everything I need. It came with everything including TV, wi-fi, table, chair, bed, fridge, fully equipped kitchenette and also washing machine, hair dryer, iron and vacuum cleaner. It is a wooden floor type apartment with a bed and a tiny Japanese style bathroom. You can see the main room on the picture.

It is however not 5-10 mins walk from the school as the website claims, but rather a 40 mins brisk walk. There's also no direct bus nor subway and I ended up buying a bike. It takes me about 15 minutes to reach the school with it. At first it looked like a nuisance, but in the end I am glad I was forced to buy the bike. Fukuoka is very bicycle friendly.

The location itself is very nice though. Quiet at night but has plenty of bars, restaurants and services nearby. It's only about 2 mins from subway and bus station. There's a konbini (7/11) at the bus stop and a post office and a big gym are also nearby. A bit further, but still just 10 mins walk is a 24h supermarket with better prices than the konbini.

Because I like running, I am quite happy with the 2km distance to the great runners friendly park Ohori koen.

I met the agent who takes are of the apartment when I came to Fukuoka and in about 10 minutes I was already living in my new home. He also takes care of all the bills and I must say I am very happy in this place now.

When I first read throught the whole GenkiJACS page, I really liked two things: The instant estimate that was quite close to the final price and the chat with GenkiJACS representative. I had all the information I needed before I even asked them for the final price.

I wanted to go to Fukuoka because it seemed like a nice city. It has a small beach and the weather is nice, if you don't mind a short rainy period and hot summer. Fukuoka's rainy period looks like Central European spring, but it's a bit warmer. And since I spent 4 years in Malaysia, hot&humid is what I am used to as well. The city is just the right size to have everything and not feel crowded at the same time.
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People are a bit friendlier here and not as busy as in other Japanese big cities. There are also a lot of families with young children. If you've only visited Tokyo or Osaka with a trip to Kyoto, you will be very surprised.

The school is located in a nice district, close to the centre. If you arrive at the school during a lesson, it will feel quiet. Which happened to me when I went to take the orientation test. But during the breaks, you realize how busy the school actually is...

At the entrance there's a shoe rack and you have to change to slippers. Just by looking at the number of shoes gives you a good idea how many students study there. The receptionists are very friendly and if you came for the first time, they will help you get around.

GenkiJACS has a big lounge and it's gonna be the first room you'll see. You can eat there and socialize with the other students. Since you can't eat in classrooms, so this room gets full during lunch break :) It's easy to start conversation with other students, because most of them have similar interests... And they all study Japanese :)

The classrooms are small, designed for a maximum of 6 students. It happened to me that we had 7 students in the classroom, but some of the original classmates left after a few weeks and our class has only 4 people now. It's an ideal number where everyone gets time to speak. And it was actually fine to have more people in the class in the beginning, because there wasn't much talking. I've become a good friend with my classmates in the first few days and it always felt sad when classmates finished their studies and left...

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It's been now ten weeks since I joined the school. It's the first half of my study with GenkiJACS and I am going to resume studying after a three weeks holiday that I really need right now :) But I can say that afte 10 weeks studying Japanese I am able to communicate with locals when I initiate the conversation and it feels great!

I have always loved Japan and I sometimes wonder myself how could have I spent so much time there without knowing any Japanese and how did I manage to find such great friends with a huge language barrier. I must have been very lucky.