Hi everyone,
After a quite extensive search and contacts with multiple schools, to understand procedures, requirements, courses and fees, I have been able to narrow down my final shortlist to 6 Japanese Language School to enroll for April 2026 (2 years' course).
Quick intro about me, I'm 38, passed the N4 this past July (but honestly don't feel great about my knowledge), my wife, 38 like me, just started recently studying, so her level is almost a true beginner (we are aware of the requirements from each school). Our objective is to enroll to the same school, learn the language properly (N2/N1 level) and then potentially find a job but if that's not the case, we would just resume our careers back in Europe with an additional skill and experience.
I really tried to use any possible criteria to help with our school choice, from climate to cities' size, from intensity level to reviews found online, all the way to costs and personal feel when speaking via email/videocall with the school themselves but from the initial 55 schools, I have been only able to narrow down to 6 and the time is running out (adding a level of stress to this choice).
So here I am, asking for your help, in sharing your opinion, personal experiences, findings while maybe doing similar searches in the past about the below 6 schools (in no particular order):
Aiwa Language Institute (Fukuoka)
ISI (Ueda Campus)
ALA (Tokyo)
NIhongo Centre (Kyoto)
Hokkaido JLA (Sapporo, not to be confused with JaLS like almost all AI do)
AIJP Yamasa (Okazaki)
Whilst I know that a lot depends on our personal preferences (bigger or smaller cities? hotter or colder weather? etc), I still would like to get a second (third/fourth and so on) opinion from all of you.
Thanks in advance for your help with this.
Marco
by marcocm4444