Hello,

I've been working in Japan for the past 2 years teaching English. I've been saving up to attend some formal style of Japanese language instruction. I came from a small town in the US where it wasn't available and due to my work hours, location, and learning style, I am not able to achieve the level of fluency I want by myself. So comes the question, which is better? A language program offered through a Japanese university, or a language school?

Because my Japanese is horrible, I don't really understand how university programs work. If I enrolled in such a program, would I have to go through the whole 4 years as if I was earning a degree? I just want to learn Japanese. Whether or not I actually enroll in university later is a decision too far ahead to make at this time.

Would a language school be better?

I'm looking at the YMCA language school because a.) it has a website in English b.) it has a location in my prefecture... I am not willing to move to a big city like Tokyo or Osaka because I already have a life, friends, and fiance here. But YMCA is the only option in my prefecture.

Can someone please explain the pros/cons of university vs language school? Or how the process of learning the language from university goes?

What self-study stuff have you experimented with? Even if you pay the money and make the effort to a attend a class, the bulk of your acquisition efforts still happen outside of the class if you genuinely want to achieve fluency. So either way, you'll want to be set up with lots of exposure (kids' TV shows, easy manga), references like ADBJG, workbooks like Shadowing or 日本語生中継, podcasts like JPod, writing on lang-8, speaking practice with your friends or on Shared Talk etc.

If you get all that right, the classes might not seem so crucial to your progress, and maybe you can sign up to a semester and see how it fits in with your self-study efforts instead of signing away 3-4 years on a course that may move much slower and be much less interesting/relevant than what you're doing at home.

I agree with Javizy.

In my experience, there are two stages where attendance at an intensive language class (20+hours/week) can make sense:

1. between beginner's and intermediate level (you will sense a great progress while being immersed and having the opportunity to speak a lot => good for your self-esteem)

2. when having reached a very advanced passive knowledge of the language (an intensive conversation class, preferably one-to-one, can be very helpful to activate that knowledge)

Courses are, imho, not so useful in the very beginning as well as at the "intermediate plateau" level (which one tends to need quite a long time to overcome, especially when it comes to subjectively difficult languages, e.g. Japanese).

If you currently don't have the motivation to self study then you really need to work on that first as paying for a language school is a very bad bet. Sometimes in can motivate people who couldn't study before but in reality most people who get a lot from language school are the same people who would have done well on their own anyway. I self studied in the states for about 2 years and then went to language school in Tokyo mainly to have a 1 year long visa so I could take a mini-retirement and as much fun as I had at language school I would NOT recommend it for the price and time invested.

There is one resource that is available to almost everyone and that is grossly underrated: The public library. Free, no distractions, and an infinite amount of Japanese language learning material (including an English book section with Japanese study books).

If you live in a larger city there are also extremely cheap community language classes. You pay something like 3000yen a month and can get a couple hrs a week of language instruction. There are usually lots of these spread around if you look for them so if you are smart you could fill up your schedule with probably 4-5hrs a week of instruction for pennies on the dollar compared to going to a language school.