I think it al depends on what your goal is when you're there. I've had friends that went for a month or a year. Since they knew that they where going back home after that time, there wasn't that much stress and they could play around quite a bit, since unless they would've stayed in Japan or planned to work with/study something Japanese related, there wasn't much pressure on them to learn the language on a higher level.

When I studied Japanese at a language school I knew that I had to study hard to get to a level where I would comprehend the classes in my current school, together with Japanese students. Meaning, a lot of study and tests. Most of the people in my school had the same goal, so the study pace was quite high, six hours a day in school and a lot of homework.

That being said, I still manage to play and travel around Japan a bit, and went to Disney Land and Nagoya with my school! And I know my friends too learnt quite a bit being here, talking to their Japanese friends (practical learning helps a lot!)! So basically, you set the level and decides what you want your Japanese study experience to be (^^)b

I went to a Japanese Language summer school for a month. But I think the experience would greatly differ from if you were studying there on a non-summer course, studying with a student visa or going for a semester for college as a study abroad. And of course it’d be very different if you meant as a Japanese student haha!

When I was there for the summer course it was mostly fun and filled with activates. There were around 20 or so Lessons lasting for 3 hours each day. But the curriculum was very loose, I suppose with the intention of realising most people would apply at my particular school as also a ‘trip’ to Japan rather than living as a student. Besides that, I did actually get to use Japanese whilst I was there too for normal things. And I did get to meet a few Japanese people too as well as students from my school who were there ‘long term’. I think, it was a good experience. I learnt more about Japan than I would have done if instead I’d just made the trip a holiday instead of a learning experience. And of course it made me really want to use the Japanese I'd learnt in..well real time haha.