Evening classes, aisling ireland any use?

Canluum

I'm thinking of starting some evening classes here, 175 beans for 10 x 1.5 hour lessons seems pretty reasonable, class size is between 4 and 8.

Anyone used these guys, or know anyone who has? Are they any use? In conjunction with audio tapes and such (maybe joining the ireland-japan social group in Messrs on Wednesday nights) think it'd be worth it?

Konata

Hi Canluum! Sorry for the delayed reply >_<

I've been attending classes in Japanese at Aisling Ireland since January 2011 and I absolutely LOVE them! In fact, I love them so much that I've kept them up since even though I've started my degree in Japanese and have long passed out the rest of my class :P I find them fantastic for revision though and improving oral skills, something we don't get to do much of in college due to bigger classes.

A Japanese woman named Maki Mutai teaches all the Japanese classes at Aisling. She is absolutely wonderful! Her English is perfect and she's a great teacher. We often talk about Japanese culture whenever it comes up so you get an added bit of knowledge. The classes focus mainly on spoken Japanese. In your first term you'll learn Hiragana, followed by Katakana in the 2nd term and then kanji in the 4th-ish term. So you can see that the writing isn't as much of a priority. The small class sizes are great for speaking and we frequently act out little roleplays and conversations and stuff.

If you've any other questions I'll try answer. In short - I 100% recommend Aisling Ireland!

Canluum

Hi Konata, first of all thank you very much for your reply. So you've begun a degree in Japanese and you've continued your lessons there! That really is a great endorsement... I'm quite excited now.

I'm a little hesitant as I've actually signed up for the pre-intermediate course and am worried it might be a bit advanced for me?

It's just I've done a beginners class before, a few years ago admittedly but I've caught back up to my old level using rosetta stone and audiotapes: basic travel phrases, introductions, small-talk, numbers, some colours etc and can read hiragana and katakana (thanks to Slime Forest RPG!) and a recognise a couple (about 20 only) kanji. I'd just hate to be paying the money to go over things I already know with another basic introductory class.

What's the pre-intermediate course like if you remember? What kind of things are you expected to know? I'm a recent graduate so at least have a lot on my hands to study

Butterscotch

Thank you so much for that information Konata. I really want to go back to studying Japanese over the summer and I am looking at applying for the Jet.

@Canluum. I joined the Japan-Ireland Social group on FB so when I am free I will attend those meetings at Messers.