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Ok, for the new students in Japan that will be learning japanese, I have made a quick checklist to help you with your studies. I remember I could not understand a thing and when I tried to ask my teachers for help on how to study they could only say “gambatte”. I will assume you will start from the beginning.

Learn the kana
Well no other way around you need this! And no complaining! Learn it before you come to Japan, learn it in the plane. I don’t care where you learn it but don’t wait for the first day of school to learn this. Also you may find quickly that the Katakana is very useful once you translate the weird English. So the first week, starting from Tuesday learn the Hiragana and katakana. They will test you on the Wednesday of the next week. Once you have learned that move on to the next tip.
Hiragana Totally Explained
Katakana Totally Explained

Learn the vocabulary skip the grammar.
For the first month I focused too much on learning the grammar and forgot about the vocabulary. You need to know if you are dealing with an adjective or a noun. And with the speed you will be studying the Mina no Nihongo chapters, you will soon have loads of vocabulary. Make a sheet in a notebook were you would split the adjective, nouns and verbs in different groups.

About the flashcards.
The students are devised about their effectiveness. You can try them; a kit of 3 rings of 50 cards will cost you 110yens at Daiso. You have nothing to lose. Just don’t feel bad if you can’t get anything out of them. What I do is that I write down each word 50 times and more until I memorized it. An other trick is to put signs in your apartment. For example in the bathroom I have body and health vocabulary, like brushing your teeth and taking a shower. Very effective is you have trouble remembering that abiru-abimasu is a 2nd group verb.

For the people of have studied Japanese at the University level before.
At yamasa they will use the polite form MASU. It will take you some time to get used to it. Until lesson 50 of Mina no Nihongo you will have to stick with that usage. Also expect to be placed at around lesson 15. The speaking ability of the students is their weakness and need to be worked on at that level.
Please do the “fukushu” review A-H in the exercice book. It will save you some time.

And finally, even if the Kanji classes are EXTREMELY boring, take some time to study those as it is of capital importance that you know those by the 6th month of your stay in Japan OR by the time you start the NEW APPROACH book.

For more General information about Japan you can read this article
Japan Totally Explained