#AtZChallenge - Japanese Language School

(This month, each day, except the four Sundays, I will be blogging about interesting features associated with Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore, as part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge)

Considering that Bengaluru is a melting pot of cultures and a technology powerhouse driving businesses around the world, it's only natural that there many foreign language schools and teachers in the city.

A random online survey showed at least 10 institutes in the city each for language like French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese etc. Besides, there are many who teach small groups of students at their homes.

In 2014, there were around 200 Japanese companies in Karnataka and the Japanese population was about 600. Five years later, the corresponding figures were 530 and 1,300, according to Deccan Herald. There are around 30 Japanese restaurants too in Bengaluru.

We are on J today, therefore, Japanese Language School. It was established in 1984, which its website says is "the first organized Japanese language institute in Bangalore".

The entire course was designed especially for the Indians by an Indian educationist and Japanese expert late H Ganesh. According to him, the pronunciation and grammar aren't tough; it's the vocabulary that is difficult since it's very different from Indian or European languages.

Images from Japan Habba (Festival of Japan 2019)
Source: Consulate-General of Japan, Bengaluru

The course is stuctured keeping in mind the Japanese Language Proficiecy Test certificate which is recognised world over. The levels of learning range from the basic N5 to the highest N1. Besides grammar and vocabulary, students are also taught basic Japanese culture like etiquette.

My son studied at the Japanese Language School and cleared the elementary level. He couldn't continue the course as he had to move to Sydney. We keep telling him to keep in touch with the language in some way so that he doesn't forget what he learnt. Not sure if he is getting the time for it.

In the city, the other two very popular foreign cultural centres are the Alliance Francaise (for French) and the Goethe-Institut (for German), which in India are called Max Mueller Bhavan, in honour of Friedrich Max Müller, who specialised in Indian languages and culture.

(Tomorrow, we go back in time again - it's about a centuries-old festival.)