Meguro Language Center
In Tokyo, I started with an excellent one-month intensive course at MLC. I like their blurb:
In 2002 I went to work in Japan and learn Japanese. I have learned a lot about the Japanese language and culture, and about living and working in Japan. If you want to do this too, then I hope you will find this information useful.
University of Sydney
I was living in Sydney before I moved to Tokyo. Apart from a lot of self-study, I enrolled in a night school Japanese language course run by the University of Sydney. It was a nice gentle introduction to Japanese, and good practice in speaking and listening to a native speaker. But I wouldn’t recommend doing this for more than about ten classes.
So You Want To Learn Japanese?
Here’s an excellent description of what it’s really like to study this fascinating language. This piece was written by Dan Barrett, a student at an American college. The original website has now disappeared, so I have preserved his article here.
CODE-J
The Content Developers of Japan (CODE-J) is a more technical group than the Tokyo PC Users’ Group, focused on software development. They have a mailing list; the member are mostly people who are working in software development in Japan. Here’s their mission statement:
Tokyo PC Users Group
The Tokyo PC Users Group say they are Tokyo’s biggest English-speaking computer group,, “a club for technology enthusiasts of all sorts, from beginners to seasoned pros.” They have regular monthly meetings, have a website and run their own newsgroups. From the website:
General job information
Lots of sites provide generally useful information about working and living in Japan. These will help you get a good feel for what it’s like to be living and working in Japan, or looking for work. Here are a few such websites that I found helpful. It’s worth reading them regularly for a while so you can keep up with job-related news and get a good view of how things change over time.
Job portals
There are quite a few websites that act as clearinghouses of job advertisements. These are very useful in providing a quick overview of the kinds of job available. Some of them provide other useful information too. All of them are worth looking at — be aware that some job ads will show up in more than one place, so expect some duplicates.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Visa section on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website has all the official information about Japanese immigration, visa requirements and so on. This includes entering Japan, applying for visas and other important topics for foreigners interesting in working in Japan.
Job websites
There are a lot of organisations specialising in recruiting for jobs in Japan. Here are some of the ones I have used. I have dealt with some of these companies personally — for example, I went to see Access in Sydney before I went to Japan. For most of them, my experience is limited to reading their website. Most will give you at least some useful information about finding work in Japan, or even background infgormation about working in Japan.
Recruiter websites
I investigated a lot of recruitement companies before and fter my arrival in Japan. Here I’ve listed websites for the companies that I actually met in person.