Japanese Language Courses in London?

K

Kaede

Adventurer
Hi there, bit of a long shot but I wonder if anyone can help me...

I've decided to start a Japanese course and I was looking at taking one at the IIEL:

http://www.iiel.org.uk/english/e_aboutiiel.html

and despite what it says on the website evening courses aren't available at the moment. (For the coming months). : (

I was wondering if anyone here has had Japanese lessons and if so which courses they would reccomend? Unfortunately I'm not a youngster anymore so I can only attend weekend or evening courses, due to work.

Cheers!
K
 
As I understand, the big colleges within London usually offer evening language courses. My college and its rivals offer Japanese amongst other languages, though their fees aren't exactly cheap.

Look around the language school websites, and compare the prices to that of the institution you've linked to.
 
My ex hubby went to http://www.soas.ac.uk/ apparently they are the best. There are campuses in London and Reading.

Me, i prefer to watch and play anime stuff and learn from that. There is also a series of books which are widely available in the "For Busy People" series, which will get you started on the alphabets.
 
SOAS would probably have the best course, come to think of it. They're supposed to specialise in this sort of thing.

(One of my local friends went there to study PPE. I may have seen him in Trafalgar Square in 2008, but after then he seems to have disappeared.)
 
Hi Kaede

I haven't heard of that school but I can suggest a couple. I was attending the one at Birkbeck university, they do a saturday class and an evening one for beginners. The course I will admit was pretty intense and unfortunately due to a stressful job I flunked by 3 marks. (which I was bummed out about) but it was a good grounding. The price has gone up, £500 over several months. But do take the amount of time you can study into consideration too.

Currently, I'm at SOAS doing the summer intensive course. They are a bit pricey but I like their teaching style. They do lots of evening courses too so check that out too.

Best thing I can suggest, is try to learn hiragana and katakana before you start, this will help you pick things up more quickly when class starts. There are a lot of practice sheets online you can print to help with this.

M.G xx
 
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Birkbeck specialise in evening courses, according to their Tube adverts. Said college might be the most accessible option if you want tuition of a UoL standard.
 
Manga Girls said:
Hi Kaede

I haven't heard of that school but I can suggest a couple. I was attending the one at Birkbeck university, they do a saturday class and an evening one for beginners. The course I will admit was pretty intense and unfortunately due to a stressful job I flunked by 3 marks. (which I was bummed out about) but it was a good grounding. The price has gone up, £500 over several months. But do take the amount of time you can study into consideration too.

Currently, I'm at SOAS doing the summer intensive course. They are a bit pricey but I like their teaching style. They do lots of evening courses too so check that out too.

Best thing I can suggest, is try to learn hiragana and katakana before you start, this will help you pick things up more quickly when class starts. There are a lot of practice sheets online you can print to help with this.

M.G xx
Click to expand...

Hi Manga Girls, thanks very much for the reply! This course sounds excellent and with classes at Bloomsbury and Sratford it's not far for me to travel either! I'll defintiely be looking into this, thank you!

Sorry can you also tell me what SAOS is please?

Also:

ひりがなとカタカナがよくことできます
hirigana to katakana ga yoku koto dekimasu :wink:
Kanji is something else all together though..... :(

Haha, also I got to talk to a Japanese lady at a rock n roll club last night. She almost fainted when I told her I didn't have a teacher :D
 
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Hello Kaede

Happy to help! SOAS is the School for Oriental and Asian Sciences, it's actually just round the corner from Birkbeck so you have a choice. I finished my summer intensive course recently and I will most likely be taking up another course this autumn too. if you would like some help when you start the course, let me know.

M.G xx
 
Hi Kaede,

I had 1 on 1 classes with a japanese teacher for 25 quid each two hour session. The progress was really good, but I guess that in the end it all depends on your commitment and studying style.

Myself I prefer to study on my own and get the teacher to show me more practical stuff (conversation) and to answer my doubts on grammar. I used to get at least 2 lessons from japanese for busy people a week, and when I had time, I did as much as 4 lessons. You can't do that in a classroom based course though.
 
Just to give a quick update on this thread...

I've enrolled for beginner Saturday classes at the IIEL in Grenwich. I think the course is going to be very basic for me, however it will be handy to actually be speaking in Japanese to people. They also offer private tuition which I'm going to go for once I've finished the beginner course.

Onve I've done this for a while I'llknow for sure whether I'm ready to lay down the readies for a proper structured course. It's a bit difficult for me at the moment as I'm planning to visit Japan in 2012 so money is looking a bit too tight for a course.

Regards
K
 
Hey Kaede

How is the course going? I'm now on year 2 of the course, which is pretty intense. What I would say is a beginners course teaches students in the 'masu' form. Basically, the polite form of speaking, which is good for business japanese.

However, most Japanese people speak in casual form, i.e dictionary form, which is completely different to the polite form. I'm only just learning that now and its a completely different form of speaking.

So the more speaking practise you can get, the better.

I wish you all the best with it.

M.G x
 
Hi Manga Girls,

Apologies for the late reply.

The course is going very well, it is slightly easy for me at the moment, but I have learned a couple of new basic phrases. I only have a couple of lessons left and then I am going to speak to the teacher about carrying on with private lessons. They charge an £85 sign up fee and then the cost is £16 an hour.

I've been studying for a while now on my own from a seperate book called Ultimate Japanese. I am just getting to the plain form of speaking and the terrifying verb conjugation rules. However it's still really interesting and I'm going to keep plugging away at it!

That's great that you are on the second year of the SOAS course, I hope it's all going well.

Kind regards

K
 
Manga Girls said:
Hey Kaede

How is the course going? I'm now on year 2 of the course, which is pretty intense. What I would say is a beginners course teaches students in the 'masu' form. Basically, the polite form of speaking, which is good for business japanese.

However, most Japanese people speak in casual form, i.e dictionary form, which is completely different to the polite form. I'm only just learning that now and its a completely different form of speaking.

So the more speaking practise you can get, the better.

I wish you all the best with it.

M.G x
Click to expand...

Hi Manga girls if your still around could you tell me what SOAS is like, because I'm actually thinking of taking their Japanese BA course next year. Although to be honest I am completely green when it comes to Japanese right now, as I've only statred studying it this year. I'm looking into getting probably some one on one lessons soon(probably similar to what Kaos is doing) and continue with those for at least the rest of this year.
 
Ohayou Vashdaman

Sorry for the late response, only just spotted your reply. As it happens I know someone who is transfering to this course. First of SOAS courses are pretty intensive, (but don't let this put you off) but they will get you to a decent standard. However, be prepared to put the extra time in to learn the language. As far as the BA programme is concerned, is it the 4yr one you are thinking of? My friend is doing that one as it includes a year at a Japanese university.

What I would say is learn what you can over the next year. Learn the alphabets and there are plenty of good books out there. (Drop me a PM and I will recommend you some resources.) Also, listening is the most difficult, so get into the habit of watching an anime with subtitles, and then watching it RAW. Over time you will start recognising phrases/words.

One thing I would add is, don't worry if you only know a little, learning a language is difficult, but its worth persevering!

N
 
Thanks for the reply Manga Girls!

Yep it's the 4 yr course which I'm looking to start next year, and SOAS looks to be a really great place to learn Japanese from what I can tell, in fact I know it's a very cool uni in general, so I think I would be very happy studying there.

I am sure doing a full time course at SOAS is exremely intensive, especially the Japanese BA, but I'm sure that will probably suit me, as when I go for something,(especially something I'm interested in) I tend to get tunnel vision and just completely immerse myself in it. While that's not always a reccomendable personality trait lol, it's usually beneficial for studying(especially for my Chen tai ji pracitce!!). It's quite exciting really!

I have started doing some basic studying of the Language on my own at home, but I am also looking to start classes asap.
 
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