Japan - Japanese school for adults

Can anyone recommend / introduce Japanese language classes for adults in the Kansai region?

I can speak pretty fluent Japanese but can't read any hiragana or katagana. The characters ironically are easier for me because I have been studying mandarin chinese for a few years now. Honorific Japanese is a mystery to me as well.

We may have to move to Japan to help with aged inlaws and being able to be literate is very important to me.

I think, that as there are only 56 of each that flashcards are a great way to get those two phonetic alphabets memorized. I would not spend time or money on a teacher to learn only those. As for the varying degrees of politeness, its use, etc, that is what a good teacher can explain. Once you have t explained to you though, memorizing the various verbs and combinations is again flashcard stuff. lots of memorizing interspersed with a periodic themed amount of time spent with a good teacher will yield great benefits.

Can anyone recommend / introduce Japanese language classes for adults in the Kansai region?

I can speak pretty fluent Japanese but can't read any hiragana or katagana. The characters ironically are easier for me because I have been studying mandarin chinese for a few years now. Honorific Japanese is a mystery to me as well.

We may have to move to Japan to help with aged inlaws and being able to be literate is very important to me.

Can anyone recommend / introduce Japanese language classes for adults in the Kansai region?

I can speak pretty fluent Japanese but can't read any hiragana or katagana. The characters ironically are easier for me because I have been studying mandarin chinese for a few years now. Honorific Japanese is a mystery to me as well.

We may have to move to Japan to help with aged inlaws and being able to be literate is very important to me.
I may have a recommendation for you but need to check with the person who worked there first.
As for hiragana/katakana, well Japanese kids learn hiragana first but if I were you I'd learn katakana first as it's more immediately useful

The Osaka YWCA is pretty well known for its Japanese language classes.

http://osaka.ywca.or.jp/college_eng/

Learn katagana first. That makes sense. More than likely we will recognize the word that it represents and thus no need for us to memorize the meaning.

I do better in a class or tutor setting than by myself. I get easily bored or distracted. Plus the thought of me spending money motivates me to work hard.

We will probably be moving to Ashiya - Nishinomiya area so a teacher / school close by would be more preferable or at least easily accessable by train.

I do better in a class or tutor setting than by myself. I get easily bored or distracted. Plus the thought of me spending money motivates me to work hard.

I doubt any school will actually want you to join a group lesson. They won't actually know what class to put you in - you speak good Japanese but can't read it. If they put you in a class for your reading level your speaking level won't match.

A tutor might be a good idea but there's going to be that mismatch so I think finding a good tutor will be difficult. As for learning kanji, I've always thought the intro books for foreigners were of poor quality. At one point I went out and bought a kanji book for elementary school students - it's far more logical (and cheaper) than any of the other books I've seen.

Honorific Japanese isn't really necessary unless you're doing business in Japanese but, as with kanji, I found books targeted towards Japanese people to be good (I actually don't believe I've ever seen books on honorific Japanese for foreigners).

Former Japanese language teacher here.

If you are in either Tokyo or Osaka, seek out a store called Bonjinsha, which specializes in textbooks and supplementary materials for teaching Japanese to non-native speakers. You will find, among other things, several workbook-type materials for learning katakana and hiragana.

I second the recommendation to learn katakana first. It's what I used to do when I taught Japanese, because the students could learn to write their names and all the thousands of words borrowed from English and other European languages. My "final exam" for katakana was either a mock-up of a restaurant menu or a list of current figures from show business with their names transliterated into katakana or names of non-Japanese cities.

Hiragana are easy if you already speak Japanese, and there are workbooks available for them, too.

If you aren't in Japan, see if there's a Japanese bookstore nearby, or, if that isn't available, order the books online.

Depending on the city you are moving into, the local city office might have free (or reduce cost) Japanese lessons for foreign residents. Check the website of the city office/ward office of the area you are going to move to.

For hiragana and katakana, there really isn't much that can be done except to memorise them. There aren't that many; make up some flash cards, write them a few hundred times each, and you should (literally) be able to learn them all in a few days, especially since you already speak more or less fluently.

I have a friend who teaches Japanese for Berlitz, and I know that they offer both one-on-one and group lessons, both online and in person. It's expensive because the lessons are generally paid for by corporations, but it might be worth checking out if you can't find anything locally that seems like it might work and really want a formal setting.

Honestly, though, I'd also recommend just watching TV (the news can be particularly good for formal/polite language), movies, etc. without subtitles. I found this amazingly helpful once I got beyond the level where there were readily available textbooks, and it will also help you pick up on more informal styles of speech that aren't regularly taught. Since you're in Shanghai, you should be able get at least NHK fairly easily via satellite (ask around). For movies and dramas, try 迅雷看看, or 风行网, or PPTV... (assuming you can read Chinese).

As you start to learn more, try reading newspapers, magazines, books... these things are a lot less dry for self-study than textbooks and test prep materials (although some of the things for the 日本語能力試験 are actually rather useful, and I can put together a list of what I used if you'd like).

For people who already read and write Chinese characters, I recommend spending a little time investigating the origins of the kana. At the very least, it will be an interesting history lesson. I suspect it will also serve as a useful mnemonic. In some cases, the kana resemble closely the characters from which they were derived. (For example, katakana "ku" closely resembles the character "hisashi".... which is also pronounced "ku"). In other cases, it's challenging to see how one led to the other.

This is one of the reasons that adult lessons need to be so customized - The approaches that make sense for Chinese students of Japanese aren't appropriate for Europeans, and so on...

If you are in either Tokyo or Osaka, seek out a store called Bonjinsha, which specializes in textbooks and supplementary materials for teaching Japanese to non-native speakers. You will find, among other things, several workbook-type materials for learning katakana and hiragana.

Finally got back to Osaka, planning to go to Bonjinsha this week then I found out that I am two weeks late.

As of October 15, 2011, Bonjinsha Osaka is closed.

With my wife translating, I am to understand that Bonjinsha books are available at all major book stores. The Tokyo branch stays open.

It is a pity, really planned to go this week. Can't believe I missed it by two weeks only.

ARC Academy is an excellent Japanese language school based in Tokyo that has an Osaka location.

http://en.arc-academy.net/school/Osaka/information.html

While they specialize in full time courses, they also offer custom tailored private instruction to fit anyone's schedule or level of Japanese.

If your focus really is only reading and writing, then numerous self study books are available at larger bookstores.