Genki Japanese and Culture School

New Videos

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:53:56 -1600

We've finally gotten around to cleaning out a few old hard drives full of videos at school, and we posted 10 or 15 of them on Youtube. You can access them through the GenkiJACS Youtube channel here, or see them neatly categorized here:
GenkiJACS Videos Page
There's still more coming, as soon as we can find the time to do a bit of minimal editing. Happy watching!

Hakata-ben Room Names

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:35:23 -1600

Room names

When we moved in to the new GenkiJACS school a year and a half ago, we gave all the classrooms numbers instead of names, to make it easier for students to find their way around. But it always felt a little boring to just refer to them by their numbers, so last week we added a Hakata-ben phrase to each room’s name. For those of you who don’t know, Hakata-ben is the local dialect of Fukuoka. Some of our students get quite good at speaking it by the time they finish (hi Frank!), so we wanted to give them a helping hand.
The picture above is an example from Room 3, 「しっとう」(“shittou”), meaning “I know”. In Hakata-ben, the present progressive verb ending ている (“te iru”, “am -ing”) is replaced with 「とう」, so for example:
知っている -> しっとう
持っている -> もっとう
食べている -> たべとう
寝ている -> ねとう

To make a question in Hakata-ben, you add 「と」 to the end of a sentence, instead of the standard 「か」. So “Do you know?” is 「しっとうと」. The most iconic example is “Have you taken one?” “Take” is 「取る」 (“toru”), so the Hakata-ben is 「とっとうと？」 (“tottouto?”). Sounds nice, right?

On the Occasion of Our 5-Year Anniversary, a Short History of GenkiJACS

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:37:44 -1600

Friday the 19th of February marked GenkiJACS 5th anniversary! Five years since we first opened our doors in 2005, in a tiny apartment in Daimyo that we had converted into a 3-classroom school. GenkiJACS was so popular that first year that we had to rent extra classroom space after only 4 months! The main staff in the first year were Rie-sensei, Miyuki-sensei, Mika-sensei and Mayumi-sensei. With the exception of Miyuki-sensei, who is off to raise a family, those staff are still with us today. The first GenkiJACS location was small but very home-like, and it contributed to the family atmosphere of the school. We’re still amazed that people would come from around the world to visit that apartment in Daimyo, but come they did!
We moved to our current location in the wonderful Grand Building in spring 2006, about a year after we opened. When we first moved in here, we had 6 classrooms in total, along with a small student lounge, and a tiny space for teachers to prepare. And just in time! At the peak of our second summer, we had 30 students studying at the same time, quite a squeeze!
After the busy summer season was over, the school took teachers on a staff trip to Korea for a well-earned couple of days’ break, and the school settled down for the quieter winter period.
In summer 2007 we had our first big tour groups, in the form of two groups from Finland that filled the school with the beautiful Finnish language for 6 weeks in summer! At the peak, we had 50 students studying together!In autumn 2007 came a big reorganization, as the school formally became an NPO (non-profit organization), to reflect our mission of social responsibility. This was followed in January 2008 by the hiring of five employees as our first full-time staff. These steps brought the school closer to our goal of being a professional organization that could stand on the world stage. The next step was to fix the school building itself, so in June 2008 we knocked down an adjoining wall and expanded the school to roughly triple its previous size, making the current GenkiJACS you know and love. This gave us 13 permanent classrooms, as well as a spacious lounge, Japanese tea room, study room, and (finally!) a big enough teachers’ room.
In summer 2008, at the peak we had 81 students studying simultaneously, so the bigger school certainly came in handy!
In February 2009, GenkiJACS received an excellence award from one agency we work with, based on an average rating by former students of 4.7 points out of 5, for the second year in a row. Then in May 2009, we were voted by members of the language travel industry as one of the top 6 “other” language schools in the world, at the 2009 LTM Star Awards. This was an incredible award for us after only 4 years in operation, as most of the other shortlisted schools had been open for 20 years or more!
In summer 2009, at our peak, we had 98 students studying at the same time – we only needed two more to make a round 100, but didn’t quite get there!
In autumn of 2009, we reorganized the school again, closing the NPO and moving all functions over to Genki Global corporation, a major step in ensuring the stability of GenkiJACS for years to come. At the same time, Genki Global GenkiJACS became only the third Japanese school ever to be accredited by IALC, the International Association of Language Centres. This was the next major step in transforming GenkiJACS into a world-class school. We were also accepted to join ALTO, the Association of Language Travel Organizations.
Just a month later, we partnered with Fukuoka Seikei Gakuen, another Japanese school in Fukuoka, to offer a combined study course, allowing GenkiJACS students to easily study at Seikei Gakuen on a student visa.
All in all, 2009 was perhaps the biggest year yet for GenkiJACS.

So, in these five years we’ve come a long long way! We’ve been helped along that way by so many wonderful people that it’s impossible to name them all. The teachers and staff have always been the best part of GenkiJACS, and we’ll always be in debt to them. Our host families and shared apartment providers have taken in over a thousand students, and given them experiences they’ll never forget. And the students themselves are the most interesting, fun, weird, beautiful, smart and silly collection of people anyone will ever meet. All of the teachers, staff and students who have come and gone over these five years will be with us forever, in our hearts and memories, and in the history of GenkiJACS. Here’s to 95 more years of GenkiJACS!

New GenkiJACS Intro Video

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:09:17 -1600

Our new school introduction video is complete, and online! Many many arigatous to Luke Javelle, the wonderfully talented former student who put in all the hard work to edit and produce this video.
The video covers the classes, school facilities, teachers, activities, events, accommodation and Fukuoka City itself. We hope it brings back happy memories for former students, and gives other people an idea of what the school is like.

And here it is on Youtube!

Great things about Japan!

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -1600

We put up a piece of paper on our noticeboard asking students to write down some if the things they think are great about Japan. Here’s what we got:

1. 旅館・温泉 (Ryokan / onsen, traditional inns and hot springs)
2. プリクラ (Purikura, print club photos from vending machines)
3. Japanese food
4. 食べ放題・飲み放題 (tabehoudai/nomihoudai, all you can eat and drink)
5. 寿司 (sushi)
6. まんだらけ (Mandarake, a giant comic/specialty shop near the school in Fukuoka)
7. 敬語 (Keigo, formal Japanese)
8. クレープ (crepes): There are loads of great crepe shops all over Fukuoka. You’ll have to try one!
9. 博多弁 (Hakata-ben, the local Hakata dialect, which people say sounds quite cute)
10. イケメン (ikemen, attractive young men)
11. ガンダム (Gundam)
12. ティッシュ (tissues): People hand out tissues with ads on them on the street.
13. 一風堂 (Ippudo, a local ramen chain)
14. かっこいい男の人 (kakkoii otoko no hito, handsome men)
15. 百金 (hyakkin, hundred yen shops)
16. ゲームセンター (game centers, amusement arcades)
17. かわいい女の子 (kawaii no onna no ko, cute girls)
18. おにぎり (onigiri, rice balls)
19. イングリッシュ (Engrish, the Japanese form of English)
20. 公衆トイレ (koushuu toire, public toilets): They’re always clean, and free!
21. レストラン・サービス (restaurant service): Japanese restaurants almost always have great service, even without tips!
22. 電車 (densha, trains): The Japan rail network is extensive, and fairly cheap…

Student art

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 08:14:11 -1600

A picture students left on the whiteboard at school this morning:

20100204-whiteboard picture (Custom).jpg

Almost looks like Anpanman!

Benefits of learning Japanese with GenkiJACS

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:06:22 -1600

We just put up a page listing some of the benefits of studying Japanese with GenkiJACS. We're always happy to hear of students who want to learn Japanese because they love the culture, and of course the language itself, but for other students, improving their Japanese has concrete benefits. GenkiJACS is currently working on ways to increase those benefits, to make your study with us even more worthwhile. We have some big programs we'll announce shortly, so till then, if there's anything we can do to help you achieve your goals, please feel free to ask!

Students Staying in Japan Longer and Longer!

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:39:46 -1600

We hate to pat ourselves on the back too much, but there's been a rash of students extending their stay with us recently. So much so that the average length of study for students with us right now is 3 months! This is great for us, but also great for students. We see a lot of people come for two weeks at a time, and while they may not have a choice (work commitments, etc.), it's really just not long enough to improve your Japanese ability significantly. So we're really happy to have so many students staying with us for the long term, as it means they're going to end up with great Japanese!
Helping students to study for the long term is also why we started offering student visa courses with our partner school. The first intake of visa course students is with us now, and will switch to our partner school in April. We're excited for them, and hope this leads to them staying in Japan for the long term!

Finally, two students were hired to work in Kyushu this week! We hope to have reports from both of them shortly, but both will start work soon in English-teaching-related jobs around Kyushu island. We're always incredibly happy when people manage to fulfill their dream of staying in Japan, so to have two in the same week is wonderful news! Ganbare, Katie-san and Vicky-san!

How Cold Is It?

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:32:00 -1600

A screencap from the other day’s weather report:
Weather report

I love the way they’ve illustrated their graphics! Not just the iceman with 冬(“fuyu”, winter) written on his kabuto helmet, or the pink girl with 春 (“haru”, spring) in her hair, but the examples of how cold it is. They’ve chosen to illustrate the degrees of cold by what kind of drink freezes at each temperature. So, 水 (water) freezes in the pipes at about -5 degrees, ビール (beer) freezes at -10, and お酒 (sake) freezes at -15. Good to know!

Upcoming GenkiJACS events

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:24:58 -1600

A slew of upcoming events at GenkiJACS!

Today, Thursday 1/28: Visit Yuusentei Japanese gardens; learn hanafuda Japanese cards at school
Friday 1/29: Karaoke party
Saturday 1/30: Sushi eating and Round 1 game center tour
Tuesday 2/2: Free city tour; “ehoumaki” sushi roll making class
Wednesday 2/3: Visit Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine
Thursday 2/4: Visit Kushida shrine; watch Japanese movie at school
Friday 2/5: Trip to onsen (hot springs; Friday night party

Students will be busy!