I am a staunch supporter of independent language learning. Classes do help, they enable you to 1) have a structured approach to learning, 2) Have the guidance of a teacher and 3) interact with others in your target language. Because of this, I highly recommend classes to beginners who don't really have a clear-cut plan as to what they want to do.

However, you sound like you know what you're doing (you probably have an idea of what materials/decks you are going to use). Because of this, I would recommend you focus your time more on watching Japanese TV and reading books.

Unfortunately, passive learning can only get you so far. Writing on Lang-8.com is a great way to practice output (as is getting a Japanese penpal). But for actively practicing speech, you should find Japanese in your area who would be willing to either 1-on-1 tutor you or do a language-partner thing.

Essentially, I think that you should find a Japanese person willing to learn English and do a langauge-partner arrangement with them where she helps you work on your Japanese whil you help her on her English.

Why not both?

I think you should do both if you have the mental endurance, time, and will to go to classes along with whatever else you do in life.
I've been running into quite a few things recently where I wished I had a teacher to ask. I also have no chance for conversation practice in my area. As such, I decided I would cross register at another school, where Japanese classes are available. From what I understand, it will be tuition-free.

Basically, I think you should do both, but that's mainly because I've decided that it would be helpful for myself (and it's free). If you feel that you don't have much to gain from taking classes, don't take them. It's up to you.

I never had experience in classes but I will tell you this. All classes you take, no matter what, you will be spending time going at the speed of the class. Class is learning 〜でしょう, lets say you already know this, even better; lets say that you already "perfected" this. Your going to spend 40 minutes to an hour listening reinforcement that isn't needed. That 40 minutes could've been spent on studying something NEW.

It really depends on your priorities and who you are as a person.  I've done both and here is what I've found:

Classes:
+ pre-made structure.  as long as you keep going to classes, it's like getting on a train and getting off at basic fluency.
+ ready made conversation partners that will converse at your level and not get frustrated that you speak at an infant level.
+ social pressure/investment more likely to make you keep up with your studies.
- you have to go at the speed of the class
- less efficient.  time spent traveling to class and back is time not spent on studying.
- classes don't often progress past basic japanese.  then what?
- provides easy excuse for inaction(finding class near you, waiting for class to start..)

Self Study:
+ go at your own speed
+ tailor your study to your ability and time allocation
+ once you have a good study method, take it to as advanced level as you like.
- no outside pressure to keep up your studies.  easy to drop out.(don't take this lightly!)
- not easy to find someone to converse with so your conversational skills will probably suffer.

Last edited by yogert909 (2013 September 17, 9:42 pm)

yogert909 wrote:

+ social pressure/investment more likely to make you keep up with your studies.

I've noticed this to be true when I was taking classes. It's not just the pressure/investment that keeps one going, but also being in a Japanese-learning or speaking community that helps, too. It happened to be the case that at the same time I was taking classes, I was also a part of a Japanese culture club, which further made me stay on track.

It is may be hard for someone who only self-studies to stay committed if they have no community to keep them going. These communities can be hard to find or nonexistent in some places, however, it is a good thing that one can find communities like this one on the internet to help one stay on track.

dtcamero wrote:

]At the university level it's really pretty rediculous...there are armies of language majors have who spent 4 years doing this incredibly inefficient activity...(as opposed to most ppl here working less hard, passing N1 in less time) and then afterwards they can't really use this one skill they put all their marbles into. For the money it costs college language classes are a bigger scam than Rosetta Stone.

Having someone to be able to provide corrections, and having a social environment to use your Japanese in a controlled manner is something a lot of self-learners don't usually have. It can be a priceless addition to ones overall study of the language. Also, no one is forcing people in class to learn at the class rate, if it is too slow. They use textbooks after all, and if I recall I was no special student back in schooling; reading ahead, revising, tackling later problems early, etc. were something I did often- because there was nothing stopping me from doing the class work and working ahead in my own time.


I can understand the bad rap classes get from a price point of view. Then again, isn't the value of your time relative? I don't know, it seems as though people attack the concept of language classes for different reasons than they are really there for.

leonl wrote:

Disclaimer: These are just my thoughts, observations from four years of being apart of various online Japanese learning communities. Please do no take this as anything other than my opinion.

...stuff was here...

I have also not seen a lot of success with self studying. Yes, a lot of people on this forum have done it, but as yudan pointed out they are a very small minority, when compared to the number of people who start self-studying online. It's the same with people who learn in classes, a few do really well, and most don't. However, classes at least provide a structure for improvement and doing better.

TL:DR the classes will be better for you in the long run

Prepare for a wall of text. Also, opinion, blah blah blah; I think it's obvious from how it's written that it's my opinion. Also, this isn't meant to be particularly aggressive, I just tend to argue points to death and shock value helps get them across.

I agree with most of your points, which is why I didn't quote them, but I'd really like to comment on the end.
I think the biggest reason people who self-study (and people who take classes for that matter) quit is simply because they don't want it enough. I'm not saying this to sound superior, just as it is. More people fail at self-studying because, thanks to the internet, it has an extremely low entry cost. Unless you're lucky, Japanese classes at a college or university are extremely expensive, so that weeds most of the people out. All of these people might try learning on their own and decide that it's just too difficult. They then tell people that they failed at learning Japanese on their own, when they never really even started.
It's not that big of a deal that they decided they didn't want to put the time in, but the fact that they started, quit, then proceeded to talk about it as if they actually tried greatly skews the numbers.

If you make effective use of your time (a lot of your time) then you'll see results. I years trying to figure out how to learn Japanese instead of actually learning it, this was an inefficient use of my time. Yet I told people I was studying Japanese. Sure, I learned the kana and a couple of words, but most of my time was spent trying to find 'the one way'.

You also seem to forget that many people don't succeed at learning a language through classes. Only those 'super special, stellar students' actually get anything from it. That's because they actually want to learn and are determined to do so.
Many people only take a language course because they're required to; Spanish is a good example. In the US, we are required to take a foreign language in high-school, until recently, the only languages available in most places were Spanish and French. You can assume the students are split evenly, but more likely, they're not. Everyone knows the French are pompous and their language reflects it, with it's nasal sound (stereotype). Thus, most people decide that Spanish, the more useful and less pompous language is the better choice; extra points in Spanish's favor if they have an older sibling who took it. This will obviously be the easier class to get through.

How many people do you think can actually speak Spanish, even after three or four years of it? Only the ones that took it because they actually wanted to learn the language and applied themselves as such.

After that long tangent, let me just get to the point: no matter how you go about it, you'll only learn something if you apply yourself. Classes and self-study have their own merits, which have been discussed at length already, but neither of them will do you a lick of good if you don't put in the effort. Maybe it comes to some more easily than others and some people most definitely learn better with one over the other, but it still comes down to effort.

And where do you get that classes will be better in the long run? I see no support for it in your post. You made plenty of great points for language classes, but none of them say or suggest that they have greater, lasting utility. Classes are useful for what classes are useful for, the benefits disappear as soon as you leave the class. The only thing that matters afterwords is the experience you had there. The only important part is that you have someone to answer questions and provide insight into the unknown; there are other sources for that other than classes. There are tutors, internet boards (if you really want to go there), and people who actually speak the language. Classes are just a convenient place to look for these things.

Which brings us to a problem with classes: what if the teacher sucks? There are resources available to see how well an instructor teaches, but that's not going to ensure that your experience with the teacher is a good one. For example, my History instructor is very good at teaching, at least to me; he tells you what you need to know and makes you think about it. He's a big fan of essay questions. And he's very straight with his students; there's no BS during class. I think he's great at teaching, while a good half of the class dropped out because you can't pass the class without working hard.
That may not be the best example (the opposite situation), but it's the only one I can recount from experience.

My point being, you pay upfront for something that may not even be helpful to you. What if the teacher is lazy and is only there to test you on kana and say you pass? It's probably not going to be that bad, but you should understand what I mean. Classes are certainly useful, but they are far from the greatest thing ever. It's up to the individual whether or not a class will do them any good.

Also:

Native media. Again you need a basic foundation, in order to make use of native media. Doing Anki decks, reading grammar books, and hoping it will sink in through osmosis, just doesn't work.

And anything else related to discounting self-study as 'praying for magical osmosis which, for some reason, has nothing to do with membranes'.
It's not 'osmosis' that we, who succeed at learning the basics on our own, achieved. We read various resources to get a cursory understanding of a concept and then used examples to cement it. How do you learn about these things in a class? The teacher tells you about it and you read it in the textbook and then you get examples, whether from the teacher or the book. It's the same thing. We achieved the execution of basic learning strategies, which many of us probably learned in another setting or, in some cases, while trying to learn Japanese.

Sure, it doesn't just sink in if you just blankly stare at Naruto or something, but with a little effort, you can search a grammar resource for information regarding a strange construct you just heard or read. If you don't find anything, you can ask on a forum such as this. There is no magic happening, simply effort.

So, all of that to say that your opinion is unrealistically biased towards classes.
Just to clarify, I'm planning on taking a Japanese class next semester. I think it would benefit me greatly to have a teacher for a while and hopefully I'll find someone to practice with beyond class. I'm not biased against classes in the least.

So yeah, effort, or the lack of it, is the most important factor for success in any learning project, assuming that you have resources (which we are, because this is the internet).

Last edited by sholum (2013 September 16, 11:09 pm)

leonl wrote:

If you look at threads on this and other forums, you will see people responding to a question, only to have a third person come along and tell them that their answer is incorrect. I am not saying this is all posts or even most, but this problem does exist.

This is actually a good thing. Take a look at the "What is this word/phrase" thread, for example of this in action. One major problem I can see with people who do not understand the concept of the autodidact, if confusing authority for reality and drawing most of their knowledge from singular sources: a single text book series, a single teacher, a single class, etc.

That is more dangerous than a wider range of contradictory but present input which is able to be cross-referenced for further analysis and valuation of merit.   

TL:DR the classes will be better for you in the long run

Most likely for many, but it is not always the case. The majority of your argument is based on an ignorance of the successful auto-didactic methods people have been using, for a long time. All it takes is to study the majority of those who take classes and how many of those continue on progressing in the language after their hands are no longer being held through lessons.

This is not an argument against classes. I think they are great. It's more of an argument against exploiting the general ignorance of those who are successful "self learners" and cherry picking class-based learners.   

sholum wrote:

More people fail at self-studying because, thanks to the internet, it has an extremely low entry cost. Unless you're lucky, Japanese classes at a college or university are extremely expensive, so that weeds most of the people out.

That's a swell assumption without any data to confirm it. Not to mention a complete lack of definition for the parameters of "failure".