What do you do all week? (part 1)

Before we came to Japan, we had no idea what it would be like to be full-time language students. It was hard to fathom what kind of mountain we were preparing to climb. Now that we understand it better, I thought it would be helpful to share what exactly it looks like to be full-time language students.

From 9am-2:30pm Monday-Friday we learn Japanese at The Yamasa Institute. We have four main teachers (Sensei's) who teach all aspects of the language. We have vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening, reading, and writing. We do various exercises, and sometimes take mini-field trips to practice what we are learning! During class, we only speak in Japanese. The teachers do not speak in English or any other language to the students. Students come from all over the world to study at Yamasa, so with some of our peers the only way we can communicate is in Japanese! Our class has 13 people in it, which is average size for Yamasa.

Example of our classrooms at Yamasa

Example page of our Conversation workbook.

After spending the day at school, we ride our bikes home and begin the at-home study. On a great day we would both study for about 4 hours at home. With the busyness of life, it sometimes ends up being more like 2.5 to 3 hours. Our teachers say that we need to study at least 3 hours a night.

At Yamasa, we study in 10-week quarters. In this first quarter we do about 3 new lessons per week in class. Each lesson has approximately 40-50 new vocabulary words and about 5 new grammar concepts. Needless to say it is a very fast pace, which is part of why we have to study so much!

Example page from our book.

Excerpt from our reading practice.

One way Seth and I study is conversation practice at home. It is so helpful to have someone at home to practice with! We also study using flashcards, dry erase boards for writing practice, and sometimes various computer programs. We have CD's that come with our school curriculum that we have to listen to at home and answer questions and/or practice comprehension. Most nights we have worksheets to complete and new vocab to memorize for the next day. We have a test each morning on either new vocab or grammar we learned the previous day.

Studying Japanese at this pace truly is a full-time job. We are SO thankful that we are able to study at such a great school. We have been more than impressed with Yamasa. It's really exciting to see how far we have come in Japanese in just 8 weeks so far. Thank you for your support that allows us to be full-time language students!

Next week, more on what we do all week....learning Kanji