JALS 2016

I spent four weeks studying Japanese in JALS and had such an amazing time. The class sizes are small, and learning for three hours a day really lets you improve your Japanese ability really quickly - but I never felt stressed out at all. The lessons are very well-structured and focused on conversational ability, and it was really fun to go out every afternoon and practice whatever I'd learned that day on unsuspecting wait staff and my host family.

The activities after classes are all really interesting as well (e.g. sushi-making, clothe dyeing), but the best part was meeting so many different people from all over the world and making new friends, hearing a huge variety of different languages, and going out for dinner, drinks, or karaoke in the evenings. I had friends from Europe, Taiwan, America, and a load of other places. It's really a mixed bag of people but everyone is really fun. The staff and teachers are all really amazingly nice and helpful as well and felt like friends too :)))

Living in Japan is also super interesting. I stayed with a host family and got to experience life like a local - speaking Japanese at home also does wonders for your language abilities, although my host family also spoke perfect English, if anyone's worried that it might be too difficult. We went out a lot on weekends to do things like cherry-blossom viewing, and visiting nearby towns :) Sapporo itself is probably my favourite city in Japan - it's like Tokyo without all the horrible overcrowding and insanity, and I highly recommend living there. I will definitely try to come back to do more time at JALS at some point in the future :)