Genki Japanese and Culture School

My adventure with Genki started in 2023 when I did a 2 week study vacation. I chose them because they were accredited by the German government (state of Berlin) to provide Bildungsurlaub. I learned a great amount during those two weeks and made at least two new good friends with whom Im still in contact. Academically I found them really strong, they have a system where they alternate teachers every two hours so you get different perspectives and explanations while following a consistent program focused on useful grammar. I liked the school and the teaching system so much that I decided to continue online for a year. My online teacher has been fantastic and she took over exactly where I had left. One year later I decided to take more time off and come back for a month. This time was also great, I was in a more advanced smaller group, so we were able to make very fast progress. There was a public holiday during my time the school took us to see the Kabuki for free which was a fantastic plus. In summary: - location (Tokyo): unbeatable in the heart of Shinjuku - teaching staff: super kind, patient and competent. I was particularly impressed by Mamiko-sensei who really motivated us to talk and improve. - support staff: also very good and competent. We got a useful first day briefing and my questions and doubts were always promptly answered. - academic quality: its focus is on grammar and conversation there is a bit of Kanji every week, but you will probably need to study Kanji on your own. The method is good with some tests every few units to track progress. -cultural activities: they are optional but very very interesting combining food, culture, entertainment and creativity. They do repeat the more popular ones or seasonally appropriate ones sometimes. Definitely 5*+ and already hoping to go back again. More than the

Great for anyone who wants to learn Japanese and also have enough time to visit the surroundings. Teachers and staff are the best I have seen in my life, and to be honest I don't really think that I will be able to go back to my school after this amazing experience. Everybody is so lively and exciting, like really lively and sometimes funny. Lessons are always understandable, and the books they gave contains so much information that even if you don't have enough courage to ask the teachers books will always come in help. With the 4 hour class every weekday, you can always go to surrounding cities like Nara, Ōtsu and Osaka if you have mourning classes. Overall, such a great experience to have in life

GenkiJACS one-month Japanese course provided a foundational understanding of the language. The course covered essential aspects such as grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Pros: 1) Small Class Sizes GenkiJACS maintains small class sizes, allowing for more personalized attention from instructors. This facilitates a conducive learning environment where students can actively engage and receive feedback. 2) Immersive Environment Being located in Fukuoka, Japan, GenkiJACS provides an immersive language learning experience. Students have opportunities to practice Japanese outside the classroom, enhancing their language learning in real-life interactions. 3) Varied Teaching Methods and Teachers GenkiJACS employs diverse teaching methods, including interactive exercises, role-playing, listening and comprehension activities, ensuring a dynamic learning experience catering to different learning styles. 4) Teachers The teachers were patient and friendly. 5) Resources Excellent and useful after the course. Cons: 1) Intensive Pace The one-month duration was challenging, especially those new to the language. The fast-paced nature of the course was sometimes overwhelming. 2) Limited Proficiency Gain Due to the short duration, I feel I only achieved a very basic level of proficiency by the end of the course. I needed a lot more time to gain deeper ability. 3) Resources Sometimes the Furigana over Kanji in photocopies was so small that it was hard to read. Overall, GenkiJACS' one-month Japanese course offered a solid foundation in Japanese. It provided a structured curriculum, immersive environment, and excellent resources which can be used after the course. The teachers were friendly and the school felt like a community. I really enjoyed my time there and have definitely improved my understanding, reading and writing of Japanese, although my ability to formulate spoken answers is still quite slow, but that's more me than the school.

Its funny because when i came Genkijacs i expected good japanese classes from what i read online, but i didnt expect the most high quality language classes in general, i rarely experinced this during my normal school time in the past. I dont really see a reason to pick any other school than this one if its the first time you are studying in Japan. If you are new to japanese and have had this fantasy image in your head of going to Japan and speak japanese with japanese people and living there like a community because of youtube or anime etc., the teachers and school gives excatly that image and are very welcoming for newcomers and beginners. There is no reason to be nervous or the feeling of pressure or any of that. Been there 2 times and even though i havent checked out other schools out i cant see how it could be done better than this to be honest.

I studied for over a little then 6 months with Genki Jacs in Japan. I started of with 3 months in Kyoto and then did 3 months in Tokyo. I honestly can not recommend this enough. I had so much fun and made so many amazing memories with new found friends. Now that I look back on it I am also very happy with the amount of progress I made with my Japanese. Japanese is a very hard language, especially if youre not familliar with asian languages. But I think Genki Jacs does a great job at teaching Japanese, you learn so much in such a short time without being at school all day. I only had about 4 hours each day and could just explore Japan with the rest of my day. And i still learnt so much Japanese. If i could change one thing though, it would have to be the housing. You don't have to do the housing via the school obviously but I did. I ended up in a very nice share house where I had a lot of fun, but it was quite far from the school and it did cost me a little money to travel to school everyday. Maybe I am just used to short distances, being from Holland and all, but that would be the only negative. All in all, I would highly recommend everyone to do it.

The classes were very participative, I'd hardly get bored. During classes it didn't seem so, because we were always practicing speaking, but every week we learned a lot of new things and also, the amount of time needed outside classes to follow what was taught wasn't high, meaning you can enjoy a lot of Tokyo during weekdays. Because of the class style, I ended up befriending my classmates and had quite a busy schedule during my time in Tokyo because of this :P

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. They set me up with a great host family and their traditional cultural events were surprisingly enjoyable. Dying fabric indigo and having a tour guide take us through the Zojoji temple were interesting and fun outings. The classes were well executed, with a focus on internalizing a grammar lesson and vocabulary before progressing to the next lesson. This shows in the use of pictures of situations to illustrate a concept rather than relying on direct English translations. There was a distinct effort to avoid speaking English by the teacher, but the students tended to chat in English. Hard to enforce rules with 30 year old students... The frequent switching of teachers was an interesting quirk of their teaching style. The teachers seemed to transition fairly well between classes, however, the scheduling was a bit in flux and made it difficult to plan activities outside of school. Essentially there was no syllabus given, so each day's activities were mostly a surprise and one received the schedule the Friday before class. Likely, this is due to their flexible handling of short stays like my own. As for intensity, the classes were fairly intense but there was basically little to no homework given. Overall, I probably would of enjoyed more course work, but the schedule allowed me to visit a tourist attraction each day after/before school. If you are looking for a more intense option, you might opt for some of the private lessons in addition to the courses.

Zuerst einmal ist es wichtig, sich bewusst zu machen, dass zwischen Deutschland und Japan große kulturelle Unterschiede bestehen. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es natürlich nachvollziehbar, dass auch der Unterricht und die Art und Weise der Vermittlung von Wissen in Japan anders abläuft, als ich das aus Deutschland bzw. Europa bisher gewohnt war. Auch wenn dies natürlich nicht den überwiegenden Teil des Unterrichts ausgemacht hat, fand ich es zunächst gewöhnungsbedürftig, teilweise einfach dem Lehrer zusammen mit der Klasse nachzusprechen oder Schriftzeichen mitzuschreiben, während diese an die Tafel gemalt werden. Darüber hinaus empfand ich die Erwartungshaltung an die Disziplin der Schüler doch deutlich größer, als ich es aus Deutschland gewohnt war... Dies war mir zu Beginn für einen in meinem Urlaub absolvierten Sprachkurs teilweise etwas zu viel. Nach einer kurzen Eingewöhnungszeit habe ich mich dann aber von Tag zu Tag immer wohler in der Sprachschule gefühlt. Das Miteinander und die Atmosphäre zwischen Schülern, Angestellten und Lehrern war fantastisch und effektiv. Jeder hat sich bei Rückfragen Zeit genommen, umfänglich auf diese einzugehen und unter den Schülern war es sehr einfach, neue Kontakte zu knüpfen. Ich war zunächst nicht zufrieden mit der mir zugewiesenen Unterkunft, aber auch dieses Problem konnte nach meinen Anmerkungen über die Schule zu meiner Zufriedenheit gelöst werden. Das Nachsprechen hat sich im Nachhinein für das korrekte Erlernen der Aussprache als sinnvoll erwiesen und das Nachzeichnen der Schriftzeichen war und ist wichtig, um die korrekte Rangfolge der Striche zu erlernen und auf Feinheiten und Unsauberkeiten des eigenen Schriftbildes aufmerksam gemacht werden zu können. Nach dem Unterricht besteht fast jeden Nachmittag/Abend die Möglichkeit, sich an kleineren Unternehmungen zu beteiligen, sei es beispielsweise mit japanischen Studenten Okonomiyaki (japanische Pfannkuchen) essen zu gehen oder Nintendo Wii zu spielen. An einem Nationalfeiertag der in meine Unterrichtszeit gefallen war und an dem die Schule deswegen geschlossen blieb, wurde ein schöner Tagesausflug auf den Tokioter Hausberg Takao angeboten. Hier wurden alle Kosten von der Sprachschule übernommen - ein sehr faires Vorgehen für den ausgefallenen Unterricht! In meinen zusätzlich belegten Popkultur-Stunden haben wir u.a. ein Eulencafe sowie ein Katastrophencenter mit Erdbebensimulator besucht, Mangas zeichnen gelernt und eine Einführung in den Schaukampf mit einem Katana erhalten. Insgesamt waren die drei Wochen eine fantastische Erfahrung, die ich nicht missen möchte. Ich komme nächstes Jahr definitiv wieder!

I attended the one week standard course in July 2017. I was able to take the placement test online before arriving in Japan, which was very convenient for me. The school is very convenient to where I stayed; its central and close to the Metro. The staff were very skillful at placing me at the correct level. One of the best things about my course was the small number of students in the class. The advantage of this was a lot of one-to-one time and small group work. The class moved at a good pace and I never felt overwhelmed by new information and vocabulary because the teachers were very supportive. I didn't do any of the other activities, but one of the students brought in a glass wind chime she’d made at one of the cultural activities. It was really beautiful, so next time I think it would be worthwhile to enroll for some of these activities as well. I would like to go back and do another course at GenkiJACS and would recommend this school to my friends.

I studied at the Genki JACS school in Fukuoka and it was absolutely wonderful. The school is located a few minutes away from Hakata Station and many malls, so there is quick and easy access to many restaurants, shops, and arcades. The classes were taught purely in Japanese, which I found extremely effective because it forced me to figure things out myself and thus make more mental connections to the new things I learned. Genki JACS also offered many different cultural activities, which were very funny and interesting. There were also many opportunities to meet Japanese people and practice my new skills. In fact, I made several friends while I was there.

It was my first experience of studying Japanese, but studying foreign languages abroad took the most part of my childhood and early 20's :). Because of my busy schedule I could take only two weeks basic course. Of course 2 weeks is a pretty short time, so I didn't expect much in the beginning. From my previous experience I thought it would be a big classroom with about 30 students, but I was nicely surprised when I saw a small room with only 6 people inside. Lessons are everyday monday-friday 4 hours a day, schedule changes every week, sometimes you start at 9:30 am and finish about 1 pm, so you have a lot of time for shopping, sightseeing and etc. Sometimes you start around 2 pm and finish at 6 , which is nice ( can sleep a little in morning :). As I already said there are only 6-7 people in one class, so each lesson you get a lot of teacher attention ( pretty similar with private lesson). Most of the teachers are cute and skilled ladies with their oqn interstion style of teaching, which makes lessons pretty fun and effective at same time. As for me, I felt the progress even after 2 weeks :) now I can have a simple conversation with my Japanese friends and business partners . I will continue study Japanese and for sure I will go back to GENKI JACS :) P.S. sorry for mistakes, english is not my native language and I forgot pretty much

The Genki JACS experience was special for a few reasons. I have entered many language schools in Japan, and the special aspects of Genki JACS were: 1. small class sizes (4-7 teachers). 2. local teachers trained in teaching Japanese. 3. Immersive language learning, with almost zero English used in the classroom. 4. Different options for study, from 2 weeks to 12 weeks. I would recommend GenkiJACS for those wishing to further their Japanese rapidly.

I am what they call at Genki JACS (and in Japan in general) “a repeater”. It simply means I have come back at Genki JACS. And why? I just feel so much at ease here. Last year I came for the first time at the recommendation of a young fellow Japanese language student in Belgium, and she proved herself right. The teachers are competent, friendly, pay attention to your individual needs and ... without exception have a humorous twitch. In fact I must extend this flattery to the office staff as well. And guess what, I saw many repeaters this year at Genki JACS, which made it at times a happy reunion. Before I decided to come, I had some hesitation because I am, let us say, at the upper level of the age scale. It is true that there are more young students at Genki JACS, but to their credit, and not in the least because Genki JACS truly creates an all-inclusive atmosphere, they make you blend in easily. This text has been written in English, because my Japanese is not yet proficient enough to reflect all these thoughts and opinions. But don’t be mistaken : Genki JACS will encourage students at any possible occasion to communicatie in Japanese, so you will not be locked into English (or any other language) during breaks or events organized by the school outside class. You will get what you are here for : learn Japanese! Join me next year and make yourself a “repeater” too, and while you’re here, don’t forget to discover the gems of Fukuoka and Kyuushuu which are not hidden very well.

I studied at the Tokyo campus from February to May this year, 15 weeks in total. I was a complete beginner when I came but felt that I learned quickly, probably mostly thanks to competent teachers and small classes. The first weeks we were only four students in my class. However, winter seemed to be "low season" and after those first weeks we were usually seven, which is still not bad of course but definitely made a difference. The classes on the lowest levels usually had more students than the higher ones. With seven students the small classrooms feel quite full. But no matter what time of the year you come, both class sized and teaching seems to be a lot better than at other language schools. This one might be a little more expensive but it will be worth it. I also think the pace is higher compared to many other schools, but sometimes I still felt that we spent a lot of time repeating . In the end I am happy about that though, since I would probably have forgotten a lot by this time if we hadn't. Also, the additional classes you can take (like conversation and kanji) are quite unique and good if you want to "fill your time" with more than the standard classes plus homework. Kanji and conversation classes (especially conversation I think) are both useful and affordable. Another thing I liked about the school is that you don't have to choose between morning or afternoon classes (like in many other schools). Your schedule looks different from week to week but I liked it. Some days I could sleep out and come to school around lunch, other days I started 9:30 and had the whole afternoon off instead - perfect when you want to explore the city. The school's location in Shinjuku is, btw, a very good starting point for exploring Tokyo. Finally, not only did I improve my Japanese, I also had a lot of fun and made many new friends. The staff and teachers are all nice and helpful and there's a good mix with students of different ages and nationalities.

The teachers are helpful to students for any academic problems or any cultural stock encountered in Japan. The first time I studied in Genki was to stay with a host family; the second time I stayed in a dorm, and both options are great to you to experience Japanese culture. For living in the dorm, you can meet lots of young Japanese and know their way of life; By staying with a host family, you can improve your Japanese quicker as you can use it in real life practice.

It's been a year and half since I last studied at Genkijacs but it was absolutely an amazing experience in every aspect. First of all, the administration and teachers go out of their way to make your stay and learning experience the best it could possibly be. If I had any questions, they would not hesitate to help me. They really do their best. Also, the school does it's best to achieve an atmosphere that is friendly, inclusive, and fun for all students! Each class I looked forward to because I'd have such a good time in class while being challenged at the same time. In addition, my homestay was more than I could have asked for. She was basically like a mom and really took care of me. I couldn't have asked for more. I recommended GenkiJacs 100%!

Studying at Genki was something really cool, because I got to meet a lot of people from different countries, the teachers at genki are really nice and they manage to make the classes entertaining, I studied for 1 month and I think I learned a lot of Japanese in a short period of time, they have good activities, the problem is that most of them are on Friday and require extra payment, the staff at genki is really nice, they helped me a lot to solve the problems I had in Japan, like finding certain places, or helping me to do certain activities, also they are good listeners, and you can talk to them at anytime.

GenkiJacs is a well structured class to help with your Japanese, in all situations, which is a great thing to do. Considering you will be living in the country. The teachers are the nicest people I have ever met, and are always there to help you. Be it sentence structures, vocabulary and a lot more, they are always there with a smile on their faces. Having the classes with 3-8 people is a satisfying, de-stressing and excellent. Especially if you feel like the answer is incorrect, go for it, and the teacher, along with classmates, will help you. GenkiJacs is like a family, which is quite comforting. The courses are extremely fun. Including the extra activities, where you get to learn about cultural activities that the Japanese did/still do or just even conversation class, where you have a topic to talk about, and you speak full on Japanese. I highly suggest this program as it really helps with your speaking, writing, and everyday experiences in Japan.

I studied at GenkiJACS for one month. I had previously studied Japanese in college, but had taken a couple of years off. Upon arriving at school, they administered a placement test. The classes were based off of skill and ranged from 2-6 people. The teachers rotated among the classes, which provided a variety of teaching styles and dialects (which helped improve my listening skills). The students were also awesome as there was so much cultural diversity! I learned so much in just one month. I highly recommend GenkiJACS to someone who is serious about learning Japanese - there is class everyday and oftentimes, there is homework, so you do have to take it seriously to improve!

I have attended several Japanese language courses in Europe and Japan. GenkiJACS proved to be the best Japanese language school I found. In all regards, from location and atmosphere to staff and teaching methods it is absolutely first class. The teachers were all very professional and committed, extremely helpful and patient. I particularly liked the fact that passing tests as such was not the primary aim but rather the positive learning atmosphere. I also liked the emphasis on developing the students' speaking skills. Altogether the course was a very motivating experience to go on with my Japanese studies. The mixture of students at the school was another positive aspect of the school. At first I thought my age might be a problem in a school with mainly young people but it turned out to be no problem at all. Virtually all age groups are represented and students come from all over the world. I shouldn't forget to add that the school is very well-run and efficiently organized. The administrative staff were always extremely nice and ready to help and advise. Last but not least the new school building near Hakata station is a definite asset. Much nicer than being on one floor of a big building the school now occupies a whole if slightly narrow building that helps create a feeling of a community. I definitely want to go back to GenkiJACS.