Japanese Specialist Shuji

As usual, I had a great lesson with the Specialist. He is always patient in answering any questions I have about Japanese grammar.

Japanese Specialist is the only teacher I know who teaches the rules of Japanese accent in systematic way. Other Japanese teachers will correct your pronunciation only if you get it so horribly wrong as to be incomprehensible. Japanese Specialist is different. He teaches you how to vary the pitch within Japanese words and phrases to achieve natural, native-like intonation. If you have a musical ear or have studied a tonal language like Mandarin Chinese as a second language, you will easily understand the principles of Japanese intonation once they are explained to you. Otherwise, you may find this method of study extremely challenging. I highly recommend this teacher for students with a good ear for language and a serious interest in achieving a good accent.

I have been working on accent with Shuji for a few months now. He is very knowledgeable and whenever he is not sure about the accent for something, he will look it up. He is also very focused on the lesson and is always seems like you have his full attention. I have used a few different resources over the few months I have been studding with him. At first, we used Genki 1 (because I already had it), we then moved to using some JLPT practice problems. We are now using the NHK easy news. Shuji is very patient, which is good in this case because working on accent involves reading the same thing over and over again if you are struggling to get the accent right. Even in the case that I have to re-read the same thing 5 or more times, he will patiently say the phrase and then listen to me as I (try to) repeat it back to him correctly.

I'm so astonished by how professional Shuji Sensei is! He is the expert among the experts of Japanese! He answered my questions which existed in my brain for so many years! How I hate myself for not starting lessons with Shuji Sensei earlier! 先生、どうぞよろしくお願いいたします！

I am very particular about my teachers, and I find that Shuji-sensei is very helpful, he explained concepts that over learning, and now re-learning the language I'd never previously encountered, which as basoc as they were, are actually very important!

Japanese Specialist Shuji has wonderful materials and is very patient explaining them.