MMoving to Japan

Which city would you recommend to study Japanese language/live in short term 6-12 months between Osaka, Chiba, Fukuoka? (Or any other recommendations)

  • March 1, 2025

Would Osaka’s kansai dialect throe off my learning as a beginner?
I’ve been to Tokyo 4 times and would love to live near there but have also heard great things about Fukuoka.

27M(USA), I am planning on moving to Japan short term for 6-12 months with a student Visa and have it down to these 3 cities.

Id like a city with as little english as possible spoken by locals for easy immersion but also with great bustling nightlife.

by hydratedgentleman

5 comments

  1. All 3 cities would have similar levels of English speakers but… I think being in Osaka is your best bang for your buck.
    Being in the best travel hub in all of Japan makes it insanely easy to travel to Kobe, Kyoto, Nara and even Wakayama on a whim within 30-60 minutes for roughly 500 yen one way.
    No other city in Japan really offers this type of diverse lifestyle, not even Tokyo.
    Day trips you have even more options as you’d be able to visit parts of Shiga and Aichi areas really easily.
    Lastly is night life.. Osaka is known as the night life capital of Japan and it’s never boring, plenty of “local” only vibes are still around with zero tourists.

  2. Fukuoka and the island of Kyushu are lovely. Definitely fewer English speakers than Tokyo.

  4. My first summer in Japan was spent in Fukuoka. Despite the humidity and rain being miserable, it is still my favorite city in Japan. There’s definitely more to do in Osaka, but what I love about Fukuoka is that it has basically everything, but condensed.

  5. I love Fukuoka, lived there in 2019 and stayed for a while in 2022-23. Things are cheaper there too and lots of nearby travel destinations. The main “catch” is being down south, it’d be harder to pull off a short trip to Kansai or Kanto area but Hiroshima is doable. Also I think it has international flights only to nearby Asian countries.

    Heads up, Fukuoka has many bars but almost no clubs and no one dances in them. Kumamoto is actually better for clubs. But in generally, Kyuushuu\Fukuoka is not really that great for nightlife.

    I personally like Osaka the best. Best nightlife in my opinion. Many famous cities nearby. But while talking with friends, you’ll notice kansai slang is different and a few times, I had to look up things they said. It’s not a problem in stores as staff just uses standard, polite Japanese.

    Chiba\Tokyo\Kanto area, there are so many tourists everywhere and so at many places, they will have staff who will try to use English. And I tend to meet more English speakers in this region.

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