I'm currently thinking about spending nine or ten months in Japan before graduate school (November to August) just hanging out and learning the language. My main goals are, just that, to improve my Japanese skills (probably going to be studying international relations; want better Japanese to complement my Korean) and have some fun before school.

Although I have a fair amount of savings, I don't want to blow it all on my stay in Japan, especially since I'm probably going to be paying for graduate school soon. As such, I'm wondering 1) if language school would be a necessity or even helpful (I'm at the beginner level, if that matters), 2) what alternative options I might have for getting up to speed quickly, 3) what city might have the proper mix of entertainment, economy of cost, accent, etc.

I'm open to working while in Japan if I can find someone to sponsor a visa, but wouldn't want to teach English full-time just because I think it'd be counter-productive to be using English all day long. As an American over 30, I'm not eligible for a working holiday visa, unfortunately.

Right now, I'm thinking about visiting friends in Osaka for a couple of weeks and just seeing what happens from there. I live in Seoul at the moment, so the investment/risk wouldn't be huge.

Still, I'd appreciate hearing any thoughts or tips anyone might have. Thanks!

I'm not sure, but I think the longest a "vacation" passport can last in Japan is 3 months without a work Visa, student Visa, or being married.

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking about just doing a visa run when my three months are up if I don't end up attending a language school or finding work. That would give me six months total in Japan, hopefully, which I can't complain too much about. Ideally, I'd like to be there on a student visa, but I'm just not sure language school would be worth the cost.

As you have a college degree and are close to Japan and will be visiting for a short period. You are in a good position to get work at Eikaiwa's if you want to. They'll probably provide you with more than enough money to live comfortably in Japan but they'll limit how well you can travel as its a 5-day/week job. I had a friend that would get work at an eikaiwa (like Aeon) and work a few months and then quit. This got him a work visa that was good for a year and let him move his job to smaller eikaiwas that couldn't get/bother with sponsorships but allowed a lot more flexible hours generally.

I think your biggest worry will be money and a [cheap] place to live. As a result, I'd probably stick near the metro cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Hiroshima) in order to ensure you have easy access to cities with work. In addition, these places will have guest houses (not to be confused with hostels) which provide dorm-like housing but are cheaper than apartments. They also allow month-to-month leases so leaving won't cost you much.

What you want to do is easily doable since that's what my friend (mentioned above) kind of did. He lived in a cheap guest house in Osaka and worked maybe 10-15 hours a week. His rent was maybe 2-3man a month, which is pretty cheap even for guest houses. The guest house enviro will also provide a good place for interacting with people including Japanese.

Thanks, that sounds like a perfect plan, actually. Do you know if your friend had a hard time finding a teaching job with low hours like that and whether he had to work full-time at first to get his visa? It'd be nice to have a long-term visa and some money coming in to fund this whole thing, especially if I could do so while still leaving myself enough time for intensive study.

Another option that I've heard good things about is woofing. You'd probably be out in the countryside which may or may not be desirable, but you'd probably have more opportunity/need for speaking Japanese than in an at english school.

weatherman Wrote:Thanks, that sounds like a perfect plan, actually. Do you know if your friend had a hard time finding a teaching job with low hours like that and whether he had to work full-time at first to get his visa? It'd be nice to have a long-term visa and some money coming in to fund this whole thing, especially if I could do so while still leaving myself enough time for intensive study.

Low hour jobs won't get you a visa sponsorship. You'll have to work a full time job at first for a work visa. This is because there is a salary requirement in order for a company to be able to sponsor you for a work visa. Once you have the work visa though, you own it, its not tied to the company that got it for you. So you can quit and go find work else where until you have to renew the visa again.

The low hour eikaiwas can be somewhat hard to find since they are generally not the big name corp eikaiwas; they'll be small business ones. You can find the postings on english teaching sites usually like "hello-sensei" or others. Those places will give you more freedom with hours usually but you may find it hard to go from low to high hours if you suddenly need more money; so keep that in mind.

Awesome, thanks for all your help, vix86. Thanks to you too, yogert909--the woofing looks like a cool option I hadn't considered. Gonna start to look into both further now.

I've been looking into this more and am still about where I started in terms of planning. Right now, I'm still going to go and just see what happens--but I do want at least a tentative plan for later on. As I don't think I want to teach English full-time unless I have to, I am more open to the Japanese language school option now and am wondering how good/bad schools there actually are. Also, are there any that provide a visa but have fewer class hours? Four hours a day is an awful lot, especially if most of it is going to be spent learning passively. Thoughts? Experiences?

weatherman Wrote:I've been looking into this more and am still about where I started in terms of planning. Right now, I'm still going to go and just see what happens--but I do want at least a tentative plan for later on. As I don't think I want to teach English full-time unless I have to, I am more open to the Japanese language school option now and am wondering how good/bad schools there actually are. Also, are there any that provide a visa but have fewer class hours? Four hours a day is an awful lot, especially if most of it is going to be spent learning passively. Thoughts? Experiences?

since you can only spend upwards of 3 months in japan on a tourist visa, there's an option i thought of, but it sounds sort of absurd and i'm not even sure how or if it would work.

but you go to japan for 3 month intervals on a tourist visa. once the first 3 months are up, you take a "cheap" flight to a nearby country for a day or three like south korea or something, and then fly right back to japan for another 3 months. then you do the same for the last 3 months.

it probably isn't inexpensive by any means, but at the same time if you enroll at a school i can't imagine that school tuition will be inexpensive either.

other than that, the alternate idea is to get married in japan for 9 months and then get divorced and head back home. or, if you can find a way to disguise yourself as the prime minister of japan, then you could just act like him for the remaining 6 months, when in reality you'd just be a wandering illegal immigrant.

LOL I looked into that and it seems I can travel in and out of Japan on a tourist visa for a total of six months per calendar year. Beyond that and there's a good chance of getting turned away, though I have a friend (rich, in his 50s, and staying at a service residence in Roppongi--and so a bit different from myself) who traveled in and out for a year without issue. In the end, I may try it and see what happens--not the prime minister thing though LOL. Thanks for your post.

only other thing i can think of is getting a student visa, signing up for a school, but then not sending in tuition or payment and not attending classes, or sending in tuition, dropping out, and then seeing about getting your first tuition payment refunded while just hanging out in japan on what's left of your student visa.

but i'm not sure how the particulars on that work.

[Zgarbas]

Don't you get a student visa if you sign up for language courses? You could sign up for one if only to get the visa and access to cheaper accomodation* would balance out the financial investment, + you can work a part-time job as a student to make ends sort of meet - emphasis on the sort of. The exchange students here get to party quite a bit and travel around the country during weekends. Of course, since you're expected to come to classes and what not so it limits you a bit, but depending on the program they can be quite lax (benefits from taking the language course varies, and there is not clear yes/no answer on whether you should sign up for one to improve your language skills or not).

*how cheap depends on city and luck. Some dorms cost about as much as a regular apartment, but the fact that they come readily furnished changes everything.

The visa doesn't seem to be as automatic as one might expect. One school I'm looking at in Fukuoka, for example, won't be able to get me a visa until April and even then only if I sign up for a year of classes. Still, I might move forward with the student visa idea if I can't find another option. My main concern is that I studied Korean "full-time" for a year through a university language program in Seoul and found it to be unenjoyable/only marginally helpful, and I don't want to repeat that experience. I don't think I'd mind someplace with fewer class hours and less-traditional instruction, though, so I guess I'm just going to have to keep searching for a place like that.