Welcome to QLS Japanese Language GYM!
You always have to know what you are doing and why you are doing it.
Our Japanese GYM was established in Toronto to help students who are interested in learning or improving Japanese language skills in the most efficient and practical manner. We all know that once you pass a certain age, learning any foreign language can be very challenging. But the key to being successful in learning Japanese is all about having the right mindset. Here are the steps we consider students have to go through in learning Japanese.
1. Learn basics first
Learn Japanese Like A Sport!
We focus on helping students learn solid basics of Japanese language first, before going into the real practice stage. Like learning a sport or a musical instrument or even a game, you will spend enough time learning basic rules and skills first, to lay a good foundation for the practice stage. It is like if you want to become a good tennis player, you have to learn basic techniques such as forehand, backhand, volley and service before going into practice stage. Otherwise you can’t control balls you hit. Of course, you may hit a nice shot by accident. Also, if you don’t know the rules of the game, you can’t even enjoy matches. We believe that this principle applies to learning Japanese.
2. Practice makes perfect
How many hours professionals spend practicing?
Once you clearly understand some basic Japanese grammar rules or sentence structures, the next step is to practice typical sentence patterns repeatedly until you get 100% accustomed to using them naturally and smoothly. Simple mechanical exercise often gets boring and time-consuming, but if you don’t spend enough time practicing, you will easily forget what you have learned and it will eventually fade out. We all know that this always happens when we learn a foreign language in a big class. You can imagine how many hours professional pianists spend practicing scale or etude before they work on musical pieces. Of course, QLS Japanese Language GYM always tries to make this process more enjoyable.
3. Practice in real world
If you want to truly improve your language skills
Once you have learned basic skills and had sufficient mechanical training, you are ready to try your Japanese in the real world. Ideally, if you can stay in Japan for a couple of months or years, you will have enough chance to improve your Japanese, whereas if you just keep practicing in a classroom, you can't be so sure if your Japanese will work in real-life situations or not. This is just like you are swimming in a pool where you can stop and have rest anytime you get scared. If you want to truly improve your language skills, you have to put yourself in the situation where you have to survive on your own. This is like you are thrown into the ocean where your feet don’t touch the bottom and you constantly have to face unexpected big waves. We believe this process should be required for this stage.
