🇯🇵 Learning Japanese in Japan

The General Course runs Monday to Friday over one to two years, twenty lessons a week in either a morning or afternoon block, capped at sixteen students, with terms starting in January, April, July and October. Teaching uses a flipped-classroom model with a tablet issued to every student. Fees are published openly, with both a full-year and a three-month option. Primarily a student-visa route, though people on a temporary visitor visa can study for up to six months; there are separate application forms for the two cases.

An evening course at ISI's Shibuya-Harajuku campus aimed explicitly at people busy with work or part-time jobs, running three evenings a week for two lessons a night, available in person or online, with a four-week minimum enrolment. Because it is a short course rather than a full-time programme, no student visa is required — you enrol on whatever status you already hold. Fees scale with the length you book and are published for the current academic year. Book a free trial lesson from the course page before committing.

One of the better-known Tokyo schools, and useful because its course structure separates the one-to-two-year weekday programmes intended for student-visa holders from evening classes, Saturday classes, summer courses, short online courses and private lessons that anyone already in Japan can take. Pricing is published on a dedicated page rather than the course index. Choose the track that matches your visa situation before applying, since the entry requirements differ substantially between them.

A long-established Tokyo institution offering Japanese for interactive communication, university preparation, business Japanese, JLPT preparation, private lessons and online courses, with its own scholarship schemes. The breadth of tracks makes it a reasonable single stop whether you want conversational fluency, a university place or a specific exam result. Fees sit on a separate page from the course index, so follow the fees link before comparing it with other schools.

Waseda's dedicated Japanese-language centre runs a one-year or half-year Japanese Language Program that accepts general applicants applying directly — you do not need to already be a Waseda student, which is unusual among Japanese university programmes. Separate tracks exist for a short-term programme and for non-degree Waseda students, while exchange and MEXT scholarship holders apply by other routes, so read the applicant categories carefully before starting a form. Admission requirements and fees are published on the programme's own admission pages rather than the landing page.

Run by the Shinjuku Multicultural Plaza about ten minutes' walk from Shinjuku Station, and one of the clearest examples of the municipal class model: completely free, no booking, no enrolment form. Open to anyone aged 15 or over, excluding junior-high students, with priority given to Shinjuku residents. Sessions run in the early afternoon with a different focus each day — kanji, general Japanese, beginners' conversation and grammar, and weekend conversation. You simply turn up; the page lists the current timetable and a phone number for questions.

The association runs three tiers: a practical daily-life Japanese class that also covers living information for Minato, a Japanese salon for people who can already hold a conversation, and a network of volunteer-run classrooms across the ward with their own schedules and venues. Registration for the first two goes through application pages linked from the site; for the volunteer classes you contact each classroom directly from the published list. Fees are not published on this page, so confirm the per-term cost with the association before enrolling — community classes of this type are typically low-cost rather than free.

Operated by YOKE, the Yokohama Association for International Communications and Exchanges, from the International Cooperation Center at Pacifico Yokohama, with a remit covering learners from children through to adults. Its practical value is the searchable database of Japanese classrooms and learning-support groups across the city, which is how you find a neighbourhood class rather than commuting into central Tokyo. Fees are set by each individual classroom and are not listed centrally, so contact the class you pick. Note that YOKE's old yoke.or.jp domain is now only a corporate shell — this is the live learner-facing site.