Temple U Intensive Japanese Course

Has anyone ever taken intensive Japanese courses at the Temple Univeristy in Tokyo? I have a question regarding the course difficulties. They have 4 different levels, beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate A and intermediate B. For someone who has passed the JLPT level 3, would intermediate A be appropriate or B is better? Thanks

The Japanese courses at TUJ are a joke and they are NOT intensive and they will not make you fluent!!!

I've taken all the japanese classes at Temple all the way up to advanced 2... yeah advanced 2 was a little difficult but it really wasn't what I was expecting. The only other class after advanced 2 is this thing called independent japanese study which you can get credit for... again it's a joke.

What a lot of people at TUJ do after they've taken all the japanese courses is they enroll in a language school part time. But I mean wtf? TUJ actually reccomends that students enroll at a language school if they really want to become fluent.

Bottom line is take the TUJ japanese courses if you have no prior knowledge of Japanese as it will teach you some basics. But if you're already at an intermediate level i don't think the classes here will be of much help.

Are the classes the same for all TUJ programs? I'll be in the semester law program and was thinking about taking their intermediate course.

But, if it's not worth it,then what would be the best way to study Japanese without paying for separate classes? I don't mind putting in the time to study, but money will be a big issue.

I've been in Japan going on four years and I work part time most days waiting tables, so I have to use Japanese all the time. So when I took the advanced Japanese classes at TUJ I found them very easy - actually at most language schools the advanced japanese classes at TUJ would be classified as intermediate in terms of the material covered.

Working has actually helped me improve my Japanese more than any of the classes I've taken. That and having lots of Japanese friends will really help you practice. But if you want to practice Japanese don't bother doing it with the Japanese students at TUJ because they all speak English and you might just get in the habbit of only speaking English with them.

Just try to get out of the TUJ enviroment and become friends with the locals. If you're only going to be here for a semester and depending on your Japanese level I reccomend taking the advanced 1 or 2 Japanese courses at temple because they do cover some essential grammer points. It's not a difficult class but a fair amount of Kanji is covered so you need to stay o top of that.

When i say the Japanese program at TUJ sucks, and a lot of people agree with me, I'm speaking from the percpective of already having been in Japan for two years prior to enrolling in TUJ, so most of what was covered in the Japanese classes I had already picked up.

So again, it depends. For people who have been in Japan for a couple of years already the TUJ Japanese program is not very good. But for people who will only study for a semester or have no prior knowledge of Japanese then the classes might be worth while.

I've taken Japanese classes at both TUJ and a college in the States. They both used the same text book and teach the same level. So calling them a "joke" is a little extreme, but it is understandable to expect more than a typical American Japanese class in Japan, but you wont get that at TUJ.

Well, I've been speaking Japanese all my life so I don't really need the "talk with your partner about what you did over the weekend" type exercises.

That being said, it's mostly colloquial speech for me so I'm trying to get more advanced vocabulary and kanji down.

I know that independently studying is possible with the right motivation, but I'm looking for the best and fastest way to build a "professional" way of speaking/writing.

Also, the program that I'm going to be in only has up to intermediate and classes are in the morning, which would probably conflict with the part-time job I'm hoping to get.