This is Greg!

He is also a student in Japan, so I thought it'd be cool to have him come on and answer

some of the most frequently asked questions I get about

what it's like studying here, and

some of the things we find hard

The coolest parts about studying in Japan

A whole bunch of different stuff. So both me and Greg are gonna answer your questions!

So let's get started

Sooo how did you end up in Japan? Did you apply for an exchange program through your home

university

in America? orrr....?

Well

A girl came to our class and she was talking about how

she studied abroad in Japan, and how easy it is...

and how it's affordable! There are so many scholarships you can look into

to study abroad

So then I just thought, I do really wanna go to Japan... so I went to my school's

international centre and I asked them about studying abroad and they

told me a select number of options

of different schools that I can go to in Japan

Oh cool, yah that's exactly the same as me then. I just went through my home

university in Canada

went and talked to the international

advisor there, and yeah also for me my

university had several connections with universities in japan so I could choose what

area in Japan I wanted to live in :)

So when you came here how was your Japanese level?

I studied Japanese for a year before I came here... but the

difference between studying here and

back in america is that it

it's very very slow and we're more concentrated on

other classes like Japanese Literature and Japanese History instead of

actual Japanese language, so it's a lot slower

we didn't learn as much...

but, for a year.

So how was your Japanese conversation-wise?

Were you able to

hold a conversation

when you first came here? Umm... no...

How do you find it now that you've been here for

about a year?

It's a lot better

Yeah

Yeah, so...

studying in japan has really improved your Japanese a lot faster?

Yeah, I find that as well. It's great to be

immersed in the

language and culture and you have chances to use Japanese

all the time

when you go to the store

talk to the person at the cash register

At the post office, you're force to use it.... so you really do learn a lot more than

you would back in

your home country, I think.

Okay, one question that I get a lot is how do you afford to go to school in

Japan, isn't the tuition crazy expensive??

I don't find the tuition to be much more expensive than it was in

Canada

I think even in America tuition is

pretty expensive

for post-secondary education. So I don't think the prices change much so

basically the same way you would pay for school anywhere else.

I think Greg is getting student loans from America

and I got a few scholarships from

my home university

from the Japanese government, and from my

university here in Japan.

So scholarships are also a great way to

help you pay for your tuition

and there are many available. I'll post some links down in the description box of

scholarships for foreign students that wanna study in Japan, so check those out :)

Also as a student in Japan you're allowed to work

twenty eight hours a week.

You're allowed to apply for a working permit.

Sooo

there are many jobs that you can do here, teaching English or working in a

convenience store, if you have a

basic level of Japanese

or

some universities offer jobs. I work in the office at my university.

But yeah, there are lots of working options so that's also another way that you

can pay for tuition here :)

Another question

how do we find it

trying to make Japanese friends? Do we find it difficult? Do you have any problems

communicating with japanese students? What do you think about that?

Well...

it's

actually pretty

hard at times because my Japanese level is not the best

and

like I said, I studied for

one year in America but it's kind of like I didn't study at all because it was

very slow, and I never used Japanese. So here is kinda like starting all over. But

at our school it's kind of easy at times to make friends depending on if you

go to clubs, or talk to your advisor

or help teach English, something like that.

That's true, yeah. But besides that

at times it can be hard to.

Yeah, I find that

lots of Japanese people are kind of shy to

talk to foreigners. Maybe because they don't know if we'll understand them

or they're not

comfortable with their English ability

so

you may find that they won't try to be

super friendly with you, but I think if you initiate the

conversation and try to

talk to Japanese people that it's really not that hard to make friends

they're usually super friendly and they encourage

conversation, especially with foreigners. They're usually really interested in

learning about your country

and culture

But yeah, as for clubs if you do join a school

in Japan make sure you participate in lots of different clubs. Sports clubs,

karate, judo, kendo, all those kind of things.

or culture

aspects, like

Japanese calligraphy or the

tea ceremony

I was in that club for a while.

What other kind of clubs do we have...

An anime club

for anyone who likes anime

You can watch anime and discuss it

Art clubs, singing clubs

There're all different kind of things and it's a really great way to make friends

You'll become friends with everyone in the club like almost instantly as you get to see each

other

every week, so yeah.

How do you find it

when you have to go

say... to the post office or the bank, and you need to do something like open an

account or send a package? Do you find it hard to

talk to the workers and get across what you want to do?

At times it's

actually very hard because

I know what I want to say, but maybe I forget the word at

the time or something like that. Or I think about it

too much, and then I'm like, ohh I really don't know it...

So usually I take

somebody that knows more Japanese than me, so that helps me if

I ever get caught

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Yeah if you don't feel comfortable with your Japanese bring a friend with you when you

need to go do some of that complicated stuff.

Even for me, I find it difficult to explain some things at the bank... I just

don't know the vocabulary, it's hard...

Most places don't know much English...So yeah that's a great idea to bring

someone

that knows more Japanese

than you. Or even bring a Japanese person with you. If you're going to

school here you're gonna be making connections with Japanese people

they're probably gonna introduce you to their families, and I'm sure they would be and i'm sure they would be

super

friendly and wanna help you if you ever need someone to go somewhere with you.

Anddd lastly, what do you enjoy the most about your experience going to school

here?

Well, that I'm actually HERE in Japan. Because like I said before

in America we actually

learned very slowly, Japanese, and in most cases we don't use it

much at all besides in the classroom. So here we actually have

to use it everywhere

So it's actually good

in my opinion to come here and study Japanese. Yeah, your Japanese has gotten

so much better

since you first came here.

You'll see a

quick improvement in your Japanese for sure. It's really great. Even if you're

not in

actual Japanese language classes

when you're in Japan. Just being here and having to use it every day

you'll

see a really quick improvement in your Japanese level.

For me I really enjoy just everyday Japanese life.

Japanese

food is awesome

there are grocery stores and convenience stories

everywhere. So it's really not hard to get anything you want, sushi, sweets

all kinds of drinks and snacks. As you've seen throughout my

videos I like to introduce the interesting Japanese snacks, there's TONS

It's really cool. You just

never get bored, there's always something new to try out.

Also activity-wise, karaoke

shopping

game centers

darts, billiards

bowling

there's just so many cool things to do and we live in the city so we can go to

big areas of Tokyo, Shibuya, Shinjuku super quickly and it's just

really fu, there's so many fun things to do here. That's my favourite thing about living in Japan.

All right! So that's all for our question-and-answer video today. If you

guys have anymore questions please leave some

in the comment

section below, and I'll answer them in a future video. Thank you Greg, for joining me

I will see you guys again soon! BYEEEE :D