<p>Going to be making a move to Cali soon and and wondering what schools had good reputations for their Japanese Language majors and teachers, as much info you can give me would be appreciated. I can take the rest from there.</p>
<p>I've heard that UCLA kicks but at East Asian languages (and linguistics) in general.</p>
<p>I think the last Gourman report had Berkeley as the no.1 Japanese program in the nation.</p>
<p>UCB is arguably the best for east asian studies in the nation overall, debateable with like harvard really, but who cares.</p>
<p>As for the rest of california, UCSD, UCLA, and Stanford i think all have top 10/20 programs in the country.</p>
<p>Pomona College has an excellent program as well. Plus, unlike Berkeley or UCLA, you don't have to compete with graduate students!</p>
<p>If you can get in, UCLA is amazing for Japanese.</p>
<p>If you can't, i'd recommend going to Santa Monica College (local community college near SMC that is #1 for transfers and is ranked high in national rankings).</p>
<p>I'm taking my third year in Japanese right now at a high school near UCLA and my teacher does teach at UCLA extension I believe... all I can say is that Japanese is intensely grueling and plan on at least spending the next five years of your life on the language. Although it is rich and an amazing language, I can't wait to get out of it! I highly doubt i'll be taking a fourth year even though I should be...</p>
<p>I've heard quite a few times that Berkeley's pretty nice in Japanese. I was a bit disappointed when I saw actual placement tests, though. It seems to me that the Ivies/top LACs/Chicago/MIT/Stanford go at a slightly faster pace. At Chicago, at least (the only place where I've actually taken classes), it seems that we've done all the material required for placement into 3rd year at Berkeley after 2nd year, 1st quarter. I'm assuming Pomona and Stanford have similar paces as ours.</p>
<p><a href="http://japanese.berkeley.edu/placement.html%5B/url%5D">http://japanese.berkeley.edu/placement.html</a></p>
<p>So in that case, I would consider Berkeley, Stanford, and Pomona as top choices, as well as some of the UCs.</p>
<p>yeah, well chicago japanese is a beast
At least cause the professor that wrote the book made it ridiculously aimed at kanji readers, imo. Least friendly book ive ever used.</p>
<p>I took intensive japanese at chicago last summer (only first trimester tho) with Katagiri sensei. And then when i got back to high school (im a senior, going to McGill next year) i placed into japanese 3 easily and ended up getting the highest grade in the class both semesters. Now Im in Honors Japanese 4 with the highest grade still.</p>
<p>Chicago japanese (at least intensive) is brain kill, imo. If you plan on getting a good grade that is. I got a B+ cause the stupid final brought my grade hecka down.</p>