Miki

I really enjoy my classes with Miki sensei! She is a kind, warm, supportive, and very experienced teacher. She always begins our lessons with a small-talk practice. I am a beginner, so it's challenging for me to express myself with my limited Japanese. But I try, and Miki sensei patiently helps me, often writing down useful words and phrases. She speaks only Japanese with me, which makes it a great listening practice. This 1 hour feels very productive! The textbook we use is also a great choice, and the workbook has lots of exercises to review after class. I also have homework to write, which we then check together. Thank you! :))

To prepare for my upcoming trip to Japan, I searched a long time on italki for Japanese tutors and ended up picking Miki Sensei and I’m so glad I did! With only limited time to prepare, I only had 14 lessons to get me ready. Miki Sensei was absolutely amazing and immediately switched up the lessons to fit my needs. We practised a lot of vocabulary, sentences, and scenarios that I would likely encounter in Japan. Whenever I had more specific questions on a topic or a grammar point, Miki Sensei explained these really well too, so that was great! I quickly spoke way more Japanese than I had expected to and gained a lot of confidence and am now looking forward to the trip, feeling ready & happy knowing that I will get more out of it than if I could only speak English. PS.If you know some Korean already, definitely pick Miki Sensei! It was so nice being able to ask questions on similarities and Miki Sensei pointed out a lot of things that helped me understand&remember things more quickly!

I already wrote one review of Miki-sensei's work, but I'm grateful to have multiple opportunities to praise her as a tutor. She is exceptionally good at helping English-speakers improve at Japanese. Among other reasons, I just marvel at the balance she strikes between challenging me and encouraging me. She makes this balance seem easy, but I know it's a rare skill to have, especially with how she doing it in real-time during our delightful conversations. For example, we hold our lessons mostly in Japanese (which is challenging in itself), but she has an incredible ability to speak to me on my level, as well as support me when I get confused. (Imagine being able to speak clearly to someone who is a beginner at your best language... it's not easy! It takes a really sophisticated understanding of both the learner and the language!) I leave every lesson of ours with a smile on my face and increased confidence in my Japanese, but also a renewed eagerness to learn even more!

As soon as next week, I will be the parent of a child whose first language will be Japanese and Miki has been doing such a good job for many months of helping me improve my ability so that my relationship to the child can be strong in their native language. I will always love and appreciate her for the time she has spent with me preparing for this major life change.

Great first lesson with Miki-sensei for my 6-year-old son! Miki was very patient, encouraging and engaging. My son enjoyed playing the colour game to learn new vocabulary. We hope to have more lessons soon!

Miki-sensei does such a good job of correcting my mistakes in a kind way.