Pyaess Japanese Language School - Far East Finance Building

Friendly staff. Teachers are Japanese native speakers.

This was unfortunately an incredibly disappointing experience. Went for the beginner’s class today and it was off to a bad start. 1. Firstly, all students were expected to just repeat Japanese words but with little context and definitely with no understanding on what is happening (I cannot read the characters so I was completely lost) 2. When I explained or asked questions, as I’m not a native Chinese speaker to begin with, I was told to just memorise the characters by myself and ‘catch up with the class’ because it will take too Long to teach otherwise (which is not the message you want to give to students) 3. When I asked the registration lady questions, she was not helpful. Her only answer was for me to sit through the 3 hour class and just learn the sounds. The second time I stepped out to tell her I was leaving, and when I asked questions on the syllabus, she was of no help. She couldn’t answer any of my questions or give guidance. Her only answer was ‘for me to be more patient’ and ‘different teachers have different styles.’ But that wasn’t my question at all. My main beef is, this center does not cater to non-Chinese speaking students. In fact another student in the class AND the administration lady told me the same thing, ‘Oh you need to know Chinese to learn Japanese.’ Wow. It completely beats the purpose of learning in the first place. And with no clarity on expectations of a beginner student and no proper introduction, it’s like sitting in a class where you are blindly repeating words you don’t understand, seeing characters you cannot read, and have both teacher and administrator who are not helpful or encouraging. Or worse, can’t answer your question. I would avoid this place entirely. Of course, no refund. Was a waste of my time and money.

Great school, convenient location for city workers. 2 teachers take back to back sessions which help to keep the 3 hr lesson interesting and engaging. Outstanding price and value for money. They use one of the most popular textbooks - 'Minna No Nihongo' which is completely in Japanese so make sure you take notes during class. The teachers are all native Japanese with fluent English ability - friendly, welcoming and forgiving of mistakes. My only criticism is there is no guide on learning Kanji, it's just introduced passively over time. Apparently it drains too much class time away - Totally understandable and I'm lenient on this point, old fashioned memorising at home is necessary. I had some very basic understanding of Japanese before I joined the class, and was able to skip the first 10 sessions. As such I immediately found the course challenging. I would say it's reasonably fast paced so doing homework is essential if you want to keep up with vocabulary and grammar. Also if you do happen to miss any classes, you can attend catch up session - even once the course has ended! Super flexible and accommodating on this point. Japanese is a difficult language, so I would say the lessons are great at introducing new phrasing, structures, grammar and vocabulary whilst also providing good motivation, practice and structure to your learning. Ultimately with such a hard language, a lot of study outside the classroom is required. I'm not so sympathetic to reviewers who criticize this school because they expect everything to be handed on a plate or walk out after a single session because they haven't magically mastered Hiragana (one of the 3 Japanese writing types). If you don't put in the effort outside of class, you basically can't learn Japanese or any language for that matter!