Hana Banana

Hana is an exceptional teacher who quickly puts you at ease and is extremely attentive to making the lessons engaging. I learn new vocabulary every time I have a lesson with her. After over 2 years of taking classes with Hana, not only have I improved my Japanese proficiency and gained confidence in speaking, but we have also developed a strong friendship. Now, every lesson feels like catching up with a friend in a Tokyo café. I cannot recommend her teaching enough!

Learning Japanese with Hana is really fun! We are diving into interactive activities that keep us engaged and excited about learning. One of the best things about Hana is how she makes us feel comfortable with making mistakes. It’s a judgment-free zone, and that really helped us to relax and focus on improving our skills and core concepts. Hana’s passion for Japanese language and culture shines in each lesson. She shared interesting insights and stories that made the learning experience even more enjoyable. Overall, if you're looking for a fun and supportive environment to learn Japanese, I highly recommend Hana. It's been a great experience in preparation for our trip to Japan. I’d even say it felt like the trip started now instead of in a few weeks when we fly out

Hana is super accommodating and easy to work with. She makes learning much easier to understand and is great to work with. This would be much harder without her guidance!

The assignment was to write a simple summary of a book I enjoyed (The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto) and give my impressions. I enjoyed preparing this in Japanese very much and also enjoyed talking to Hana about it. She gave me excellent feedback to help me fine tune my Japanese. We also discussed Japanese women novelists whose works we enjoy.

During the past three months Hana has helped me to both improve and expand on the Japanese I had taught myself. Even when her lessons cover something I learned earlier, I always learn something from her lessons. She teaches not just how something is said or done, but why. She has even shown me ways of using the Japanese that I knew, in ways that I didn’t know I could. Her personable manner makes her easy to talk to, and her enthusiasm is contagious. She is also very patient, but will politely interject if the situation merits it. Our conversations have covered a wide range of areas from food, fashion, and travel to family and weekend plans. In getting to know each other we have built a rapport which has made learning fun & interesting. As we wrapped up my latest lesson I told Hana that I didn’t have any plans this weekend. Her reply was, “then you’ll be able to complete your homework before our next lesson.” Did I mention she has a witty sense of humor? I can not recommend Hana enough!

Hana is an amazing tutor! She makes me want to keep improving at Japanese!