Hey guys! I've got a new guest on my channel today.
This is Greg!
He is also a student in Japan, so I thought it'd be cool to have him come on and answer
some of the most frequently asked questions I get about
what it's like studying here, and
some of the things we find hard
The coolest parts about studying in Japan
A whole bunch of different stuff. So both me and Greg are gonna answer your questions!
So let's get started
Sooo how did you end up in Japan? Did you apply for an exchange program through your home
university
in America? orrr....?
Well
A girl came to our class and she was talking about how
she studied abroad in Japan, and how easy it is...
and how it's affordable! There are so many scholarships you can look into
to study abroad
So then I just thought, I do really wanna go to Japan... so I went to my school's
international centre and I asked them about studying abroad and they
told me a select number of options
of different schools that I can go to in Japan
Oh cool, yah that's exactly the same as me then. I just went through my home
university in Canada
went and talked to the international
advisor there, and yeah also for me my
university had several connections with universities in japan so I could choose what
area in Japan I wanted to live in :)
So when you came here how was your Japanese level?
I studied Japanese for a year before I came here... but the
difference between studying here and
back in america is that it
it's very very slow and we're more concentrated on
other classes like Japanese Literature and Japanese History instead of
actual Japanese language, so it's a lot slower
we didn't learn as much...
but, for a year.
So how was your Japanese conversation-wise?
Were you able to
hold a conversation
when you first came here? Umm... no...
How do you find it now that you've been here for
about a year?
It's a lot better
Yeah
Yeah, so...
studying in japan has really improved your Japanese a lot faster?
Yeah, I find that as well. It's great to be
immersed in the
language and culture and you have chances to use Japanese
all the time
when you go to the store
talk to the person at the cash register
At the post office, you're force to use it.... so you really do learn a lot more than
you would back in
your home country, I think.
Okay, one question that I get a lot is how do you afford to go to school in
Japan, isn't the tuition crazy expensive??
I don't find the tuition to be much more expensive than it was in
Canada
I think even in America tuition is
pretty expensive
for post-secondary education. So I don't think the prices change much so
basically the same way you would pay for school anywhere else.
I think Greg is getting student loans from America
and I got a few scholarships from
my home university
from the Japanese government, and from my
university here in Japan.
So scholarships are also a great way to
help you pay for your tuition
and there are many available. I'll post some links down in the description box of
scholarships for foreign students that wanna study in Japan, so check those out :)
Also as a student in Japan you're allowed to work
twenty eight hours a week.
You're allowed to apply for a working permit.
Sooo
there are many jobs that you can do here, teaching English or working in a
convenience store, if you have a
basic level of Japanese
or
some universities offer jobs. I work in the office at my university.
But yeah, there are lots of working options so that's also another way that you
can pay for tuition here :)
Another question
how do we find it
trying to make Japanese friends? Do we find it difficult? Do you have any problems
communicating with japanese students? What do you think about that?
Well...
it's
actually pretty
hard at times because my Japanese level is not the best
and
like I said, I studied for
one year in America but it's kind of like I didn't study at all because it was
very slow, and I never used Japanese. So here is kinda like starting all over. But
at our school it's kind of easy at times to make friends depending on if you
go to clubs, or talk to your advisor
or help teach English, something like that.
That's true, yeah. But besides that
at times it can be hard to.
Yeah, I find that
lots of Japanese people are kind of shy to
talk to foreigners. Maybe because they don't know if we'll understand them
or they're not
comfortable with their English ability
so
you may find that they won't try to be
super friendly with you, but I think if you initiate the
conversation and try to
talk to Japanese people that it's really not that hard to make friends
they're usually super friendly and they encourage
conversation, especially with foreigners. They're usually really interested in
learning about your country
and culture
But yeah, as for clubs if you do join a school
in Japan make sure you participate in lots of different clubs. Sports clubs,
karate, judo, kendo, all those kind of things.
or culture
aspects, like
Japanese calligraphy or the
tea ceremony
I was in that club for a while.
What other kind of clubs do we have...
An anime club
for anyone who likes anime
You can watch anime and discuss it
Art clubs, singing clubs
There're all different kind of things and it's a really great way to make friends
You'll become friends with everyone in the club like almost instantly as you get to see each
other
every week, so yeah.
How do you find it
when you have to go
say... to the post office or the bank, and you need to do something like open an
account or send a package? Do you find it hard to
talk to the workers and get across what you want to do?
At times it's
actually very hard because
I know what I want to say, but maybe I forget the word at
the time or something like that. Or I think about it
too much, and then I'm like, ohh I really don't know it...
So usually I take
somebody that knows more Japanese than me, so that helps me if
I ever get caught
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Yeah if you don't feel comfortable with your Japanese bring a friend with you when you
need to go do some of that complicated stuff.
Even for me, I find it difficult to explain some things at the bank... I just
don't know the vocabulary, it's hard...
Most places don't know much English...So yeah that's a great idea to bring
someone
that knows more Japanese
than you. Or even bring a Japanese person with you. If you're going to
school here you're gonna be making connections with Japanese people
they're probably gonna introduce you to their families, and I'm sure they would be and i'm sure they would be
super
friendly and wanna help you if you ever need someone to go somewhere with you.
Anddd lastly, what do you enjoy the most about your experience going to school
here?
Well, that I'm actually HERE in Japan. Because like I said before
in America we actually
learned very slowly, Japanese, and in most cases we don't use it
much at all besides in the classroom. So here we actually have
to use it everywhere
So it's actually good
in my opinion to come here and study Japanese. Yeah, your Japanese has gotten
so much better
since you first came here.
You'll see a
quick improvement in your Japanese for sure. It's really great. Even if you're
not in
actual Japanese language classes
when you're in Japan. Just being here and having to use it every day
you'll
see a really quick improvement in your Japanese level.
For me I really enjoy just everyday Japanese life.
Japanese
food is awesome
there are grocery stores and convenience stories
everywhere. So it's really not hard to get anything you want, sushi, sweets
all kinds of drinks and snacks. As you've seen throughout my
videos I like to introduce the interesting Japanese snacks, there's TONS
It's really cool. You just
never get bored, there's always something new to try out.
Also activity-wise, karaoke
shopping
game centers
darts, billiards
bowling
there's just so many cool things to do and we live in the city so we can go to
big areas of Tokyo, Shibuya, Shinjuku super quickly and it's just
really fu, there's so many fun things to do here. That's my favourite thing about living in Japan.
All right! So that's all for our question-and-answer video today. If you
guys have anymore questions please leave some
in the comment
section below, and I'll answer them in a future video. Thank you Greg, for joining me
I will see you guys again soon! BYEEEE :D