Greetings kooii people. I'm thinking of making a change in my studies and wanted to get some feedback from people before moving forward.

My background is that I did JET about a decade ago, knowing no Japanese before I left. I probably got thru both beginner Minna no Nihongo texts with a teacher at that time. When I came back I had no opportunities to use Japanese so it all atrophied.

Last year I had a chance to get back into Japanese, realized it was fun, and stuck with it. I had two stretch goals: in December give a talk in Japan on my research in Japanese, and pass the N4. Somehow, I managed to do both.

During that time people here recommended I take some classes with JOI and it really stuck. But then I got some free lessons and feel like I've overdone it. The lessons there are super focused: organized by JLPT level, with grammar and vocab each lesson. I'm pretty sure that if I keep it up for the year I have a good shot of passing N3 this December.

The thing for me is that while I like using the JLPT as a benchmark, it isn't that important to me. For example, I attend some professional meetups here with a lot of native speakers. Speaking to them in Japanese, and following up with emails is more important to me. The irony of my recent studying is that it has made me clam up a bit more in social settings. And it has made Japanese more of an academic exercise than the language as a natural communication tool.

So I'm thinking of stopping with the JOI group lessons for now, and perhaps take some private lessons on italki (which seems cheaper for private lessons than JOI). I've never done that before. Is it possible to use those lessons for speaking, reading and writing practice? If anyone can recommend a teacher that would be particularly welcome.

[RawToast]

Quote:So I'm thinking of stopping with the JOI group lessons for now, and perhaps take some private lessons on italki (which seems cheaper for private lessons than JOI). I've never done that before. Is it possible to use those lessons for speaking, reading and writing practice? If anyone can recommend a teacher that would be particularly welcome.

I like JOI, but have stuck to iTalki after the trial. I'll probably go back once my useless night classes finish next month.

You can do what you want in the lessons. Every tutor I have tried on iTalki has been happy to take suggestions and change things up. I try to fit in 2.5 hours of lessons on iTalki per week, but tend to have most of my lessons at the weekend!

Mami-san
I've always stuck to her recommended lesson structure: you write a short essay for the next lesson, Mami-san reads and corrects it, I read it, and then practice conversation using the contents of essay.

The only issue with her lessons is her webcam's sound drops for a few seconds (once or twice a lesson). I put up with that for the price

Merorin
I randomly picked Merorin for my first lesson and have stuck with him; I've seen him recommended on here before. My lessons with Merorin are a mixture of reading and speaking practice using a mixture of textbooks and online resources. He's rather strict on pitch accent, which fixed a few issues early on for me.

RawToast Wrote:...
Mami-san
...

Wow, she is learning Czech language? *falls from chair*

RawToast Wrote:Mami-san

Wow, that's affordable! Good deal.

I've boiled down to one lesson a week now, to give me more time to read and watch dramas. (And also because I want to stop paying $100+/mo. for lessons.) I'm sticking with Rinko (http://www.italki.com/teacher/1111693). Very nice person, flexible in lesson content, and very good at explaining complex Japanese in simple Japanese. I've taken lessons from her now for almost two years.

Thanks guys!

I just signed up for my first lesson with "JapaneseTutor" (http://www.italki.com/teacher/591602). It will be the first time I have taken Japanese lessons from a male teacher

I also liked the crazy challenge that he presented by writing his whole profile in Japanese.

It looks like you get 3 super-discounted lessons when you first sign up, so I'll see how this goes. I like that the credits don't expire. At JOI they expire.

[RawToast]

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I've boiled down to one lesson a week now, to give me more time to read and watch dramas. (And also because I want to stop paying $100+/mo. for lessons.)

So the Challenge it your wallet hard too!

Quote:I'm sticking with Rinko (http://www.italki.com/teacher/1111693).

I'd try a lesson, but unfortunately without weekend lessons I the times are impossible for me That's the main issue pushing me to go try JOI once more -- I could get a lessons after work.

It's amazing, isn't it? The combination of anki + rtk + these online schools has really removed most of the obstacles to learning Japanese. At this point I feel it's just a matter of putting in the time.

[RawToast]

ariariari Wrote:It's amazing, isn't it? The combination of anki + rtk + these online schools has really removed most of the obstacles to learning Japanese. At this point I feel it's just a matter of putting in the time.

Definitely! Even just 10 years ago we didn't have such a wealth of resources. For example, Skype was released in 2003, there were alternatives, but nothing was ubiquitous as Skype is today. After failing Spanish in school and finding night classes nigh-on useless, it's great to have an alternative.

Quote:I just signed up for my first lesson with "JapaneseTutor" (http://www.italki.com/teacher/591602). It will be the first time I have taken Japanese lessons from a male teacher

Trying a male teacher was also a factor for me. I haven't tried "JapaneseTutor" but it seems like he doesn't speak English -- so you've got a challenge coming up! I am sure it will be fine

If you keep up with lessons I doubt you will struggle with the N3 test in December (the same goes for myself, looking to fail in the summer first!) I believe JOI offer JLPT "cram"/revision sessions nearer the exam; I've never tried them, but I would assume they're useful.

ariariari Wrote:Thanks guys!

I just signed up for my first lesson with "JapaneseTutor" (http://www.italki.com/teacher/591602). It will be the first time I have taken Japanese lessons from a male teacher

I also liked the crazy challenge that he presented by writing his whole profile in Japanese.

It looks like you get 3 super-discounted lessons when you first sign up, so I'll see how this goes. I like that the credits don't expire. At JOI they expire.

Interesting you mention a male teacher.

All of my Japanese teachers have been women. They are all very nice, but I was thinking just ONCE it would nice to have a male teacher, just for a different point of view etc.

But here in North America, male Japanese teachers seem to be a rarity. I've never encountered one. All the teachers, and their assistants, have been women.

RawToast Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I've boiled down to one lesson a week now, to give me more time to read and watch dramas. (And also because I want to stop paying $100+/mo. for lessons.)

So the Challenge it your wallet hard too!

Um, yeah :-p I've actually been taking 8 to 12 classes a month for a while, and I'm exhausted from it. It's too hard to fit classes in during the week, esp. when I'm worn out from work, kids, and commuting. Like I said, I wanted to make more time to enjoy Japanese, as opposed to just studying it. So I'll be watching dramas and reading instead. And saving money in the process.

I'll also be taking my first ever full break from iTalki next month while I'm in Japan.

RawToast Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I'm sticking with Rinko (http://www.italki.com/teacher/1111693).

I'd try a lesson, but unfortunately without weekend lessons I the times are impossible for me That's the main issue pushing me to go try JOI once more -- I could get a lessons after work.

She has Sunday night lesson times. Just don't take 8pm US Pacific - that's MY time, dammit :-p

Not completely related to the topic itself but I was wondering...for those who take JOI lessons, do you buy the textbooks they recommend? I always have been interested in trying them out but I always had that question.

Thank you.

I happened to already have the kanzen grammar N3 book before I started lessons at JOI. It doesn't make much of a difference to own it. The lessons will explain each grammar point, and a PDF with explanations is sent to you afterwards. And I don't feel much need to read up on the grammar before the lesson.

kassia Wrote:Not completely related to the topic itself but I was wondering...for those who take JOI lessons, do you buy the textbooks they recommend? I always have been interested in trying them out but I always had that question.

Thank you.

I bought them all because I happened to be in Japan when I started the classes, and thought "it will be so hard to get these when I get back".

I haven't really used them, because the lessons are so self contained.

RawToast Wrote:If you keep up with lessons I doubt you will struggle with the N3 test in December (the same goes for myself, looking to fail in the summer first!) I believe JOI offer JLPT "cram"/revision sessions nearer the exam; I've never tried them, but I would assume they're useful.

Yeah, that might be true. But I get a feeling that it will depend on how much I want to tailor my Japanese time to JLPT. For example, my N3 vocab book says that there's about 1,200 extra words to know from N4 to N3. That works out to about 100 words a month if you want a year between exams.

It looks like for the past few months I've been on track for that, but I feel like I'm spending too much time on anki each day. According to anki I've spent 25-35 hours a month doing reviews in the 3 months since I got back from Japan. And all I'm thinking is: "how many hours did I actually spend having fun with the language, actually using it to enrich my life?"



Right now I think that I'd like to both lower the total amount of time I spend with anki each day, and improve the anki:fun ratio. And more than just fun, but also speaking and writing. Those are skills that are essential for communication but not tested on JLPT, and that Anki can't help you with.

I have 3 main anki decks: vocab, kanji and grammar. And right now the bulk of my reviews are in vocab. So I'm thinking a good first step is to just stop adding vocab for a while.

[RawToast]

Quote:Right now I think that I'd like to both lower the total amount of time I spend with anki each day, and improve the anki:fun ratio. And more than just fun, but also speaking and writing. Those are skills that are essential for communication but not tested on JLPT, and that Anki can't help you with.

I also reduce the new card count when I find the review count is building up. It only takes a week or so for the review count to come crashing down.

For what it's worth, today I brought a print out of an NHK easy news article to my Japanese-English conversation club. I had read it a few times before coming.

I first read it out loud for my partner, which made me feel like I was in first grade again. But it was good practice.

Then we discussed it, and they asked me some reading comprehension style questions about it too.

It was pretty successful, and was a pleasant change from self-introduction style conversation exchange sessions that I had in the past. I was finding those a bit repetitive.

[RawToast]

ariariari Wrote:For what it's worth, today I brought a print out of an NHK easy news article to my Japanese-English conversation club. I had read it a few times before coming.

I first read it out loud for my partner, which made me feel like I was in first grade again. But it was good practice.

Then we discussed it, and they asked me some reading comprehension style questions about it too.

I find it amusing that once more we have been doing similar activities xD

In my last two lessons with a teacher on iTalki I have been reading out loud and getting corrections on accent, missing sounds, etc. It does feel like being in preschool (reading with a teacher or assistant,) but that method is how you learn to read English.

Quote:It was pretty successful, and was a pleasant change from self-introduction style conversation exchange sessions that I had in the past. I was finding those a bit repetitive.

Haha yes! If you change (or try new) your partner or teacher often you will get a lot of self-introduction practice!

RawToast Wrote:

ariariari Wrote:For what it's worth, today I brought a print out of an NHK easy news article to my Japanese-English conversation club. I had read it a few times before coming.

I first read it out loud for my partner, which made me feel like I was in first grade again. But it was good practice.

Then we discussed it, and they asked me some reading comprehension style questions about it too.

I find it amusing that once more we have been doing similar activities xD

In my last two lessons with a teacher on iTalki I have been reading out loud and getting corrections on accent, missing sounds, etc. It does feel like being in preschool (reading with a teacher or assistant,) but that method is how you learn to read English.

Ha! You should join us over at the Does anyone wanna have a race? thread. We just post anki stats to help keep us motivated.

Thought I'd just post about my first experience with italki. Overall it was very positive.

I forgot what a joy 1-1 lessons can be. It's the only time I find that I understand almost everything that a Japanese person says over an extended period of time. It was great prep for me because I had a meetup the next day with a Japanese group and building up my confidence with a long talking session with a native speaker was a huge help for that.

I wanted to practice writing, so he assigned me a topic at the end of the class. I spent 15 minutes writing 100-200 characters about the topic. I was surprised that I was able to write so much so quickly. I wrote it as a google doc then shared it with him and he immediately corrected it.

Then I wanted another sesion to discuss the corrections, which we had. Then he assigned me another topic to write about.

Overall, it was great. It amazes me that 1-1 lessons with teachers is so accessible, and that I can incorporate writing practice into my studying so easily.

italki really stresses doing trial lessons with several teachers. So I'll probably shop around a bit. I'm especially curious about the "community teachers". They are so cheap it's really hard to believe.

I haven't figured out how to fit italki in with the other study methods yet, but I guess that I don't need to have an answer to that now. Overall it was just a great experience and something totally new and unexpected.