TCJ Japanese Language School Tokyo — Local services in Tokyo

I've been studying in this school for 8 months + now. I started from N4 in this school and now I'm at N2. Below are just my personal experiences in this school. Different people might have different opinions.

I'm someone who have almost zero knowledge in kanji and I must stress that this school puts in very little effort to teach students kanji. Most students in this school are Chinese educated; hence it is very frustrating for someone like me who can't read Chinese to enjoy the lessons. I used to enjoy studying Japanese but going to school and learning Japanese has now become a dreadful task. Unless you're willing to put in extra effort out of school to drill kanji on your own (including the other homework, it would take a huge chunk of time out of one’s schedule), I would seriously recommend trying another school.

When it was time for examinations, it is excruciating as I can barely read the kanji. Hence, how would they asses if I understood the lessons taught? If I should already be able to read and understand all those kanji, then how is it that I’m now studying N2 and my kanji level is probably around N4? The timings for examinations are usually really rushed as well, but they claim that is the standard for Japan’s examination system. This system might be good for students trying to get into universities, but how about those who just want to actually learn the language instead of focusing on scoring for each test?

As of now, I usually need to look up all the kanji reading and meanings before class which is time consuming. It has gotten to the point where I sometimes skip class to self study because I could actually learn more in a more efficient time and manner.

How good the lessons are, are highly based on the teacher one gets as well. And frankly, good teachers are rare. I've only came across one within 3 semester. Sadly, I could only say that my first semester was the only one that I can call satisfactory. Usually they have two teachers per semester, per class. However, shockingly for this semester (3rd) there were around 5 teachers rotating to teach my class. Not a very pleasant experience.

I’ll be listing down the pro and cons:

Exam orientated

Around 20 students per class (too many for my liking)

3 hours per lesson (around 4-5 hours/day including transport for myself)

Barely any speaking/conversation practice (mostly textbook reading in class)

Barely any kanji teaching/learning (only some memorization test which I consider highly inefficient)

Heavily text book orientated

Inconsistent teachers (4-5 teachers taking turns to teach the class)

Fees paid are not refundable (some school allows student get some refund if students find the classes unsatisfactory)

Lessons are teacher teaching by giving their own explanations and example for a new grammar, followed by text book reading (which consists of explanations and example sentences of that same particular grammar). Lessons also included reading comprehension and questions answering. Sometimes listening practice.

Daily homework includes Q&A from textbooks, sentence memorization and kanji memorization to be tested on the next lesson (which don’t really work for me). Sometimes they have essay homework which I can attest works better in improving my language skill.

Conclusion: If you have good grasp of Chinese characters or is aiming for a University, you might want to consider this school. Other than that, one might want to check out other schools which are less exam orientated, more conversation orientated, focuses more on the usage of Japanese language and includes...

TCJ has their own weird unknown set of admission criteria and will reject you even if you legally meet all of the Japan Immigration visa rules, have completed 12 years of education, a degree and work experience, finances, have legit reasons to be in Japan. Their secret criteria they do not state on their website, this is a red flag itself. If you're serious and want to find a good school to study Japanese with proper student support, avoid this school.

P.S to their comment to my review: They still did not explain clearly to me why I cannot enroll at TCJ after I sent an email enquiry, even when my degree was earned overseas at a top global university, and my records do not go against the 'flow of the Japanese immigration system'. Neither did they bother to enquire more about my history or record with Japan to check if it's legit.

Their enquiry form on their website doesn't allow people to enquire more about their program or your eligibility directly. It requires you to give them explicit information on your sponsor salary upfront - which no other Japanese school does. Clearly its about you fitting into their criteria and not you finding out if the school is for you. Don't be fooled by their adverts and aesthetics. Read the other low reviews and you can see a common theme - lack of student support.

The staff who held the online seminar is either unknowledgeable or outright lied to the person who asked about whether he was able to enroll at a Japanese language school after graduating from a Japanese university. She skirted the main question and just said that TCJ isn't able to accept him without any explanation. Also their video was turned off and the staff was probably reading from a script and sounded robotic. What a shame this school offers zero assistance nor clear explanation to people who genuinely want to study at a school.

FYI, the Japanese university student visa and Japanese language student visas are two different types and have different validity periods. For language student visa, each person has a total of 2 years and maximum 2 (in your lifetime, no matter which Japanese language school you enroll in, to prevent people abusing this visa type). Check with websites and the Immigration website.

I've asked different Japanese language schools and they bothered to enquire about my situation. There are schools which accept students who have had a language visa before (as long as there is still 0.5 to 1 year left out of the 2), or have a university student visa before. Do your due research.

TCJ doesn't want any extra trouble. They will not bother to explain why either. Expect a generic cut-and-paste reply of rejection. This gives a sneak peek of their student support services. So much for おもてなし

They only recruit people with zero records of being a student in Japan because their visa rejection rate affects their reputation with the immigration, so they aren't taking any risk.

Aside from this, my simple question of whether if there was any trial classes wasn't even answered on their live webinar (another red flag).

The other 5 star reviews are generic in their comments, cut and pasted from their PR website, or obviously from chatGPT. They only give positive comments and never holistic reviews including the bad. Its so obvious those reviews were orchestrated, plus those accounts only have 1 or 2 reviews under their account. Trustworthy? You decide. Obviously done by the school to pull up...

Offers multiple courses to adhere to what you want to do in Japan. University, technical college, work, graduate school, etc

You're legally only allowed 2 years for Japanese education within Japan and it is nearly impossible to become native level in 2 years unless you've studied back home up to N3 Ievel or so. With that in mind, I've come to Japan with absolutely no knowledge of Japanese, and with the teachers' and school's support, in a year and half I've passed my foreign student university exam with an average score, applied to my first choice university, and with the teachers' help I've been practicing on interviews and I've managed to pass my interviews and essay writing for university.

In short, if you work hard and try your best, the teachers will help you get even further, part time job interview practices, university interview practices, exam practices, and will even help you look for universities, work, technical colleges etc.

This is a great school, and it's a big, known one, thus most universities and technical colleges are familiar with it, meaning there's better opportunities etc

My only advice is, study hard and do your best with kanji, the practice methods for kanji and vocabulary have increased drastically since before, so it's easier for people like me who have no knowledge of kanji to get further.

Of course, depending on your luck you might end up with teachers who aren't at the same level as I've mentioned, which is definitely something the school...