Today was my 12-year-old daughter’s 181st lesson with Aki. She has qualified to take a rigorous Japanese class in her middle school next year. Aki has been her only teacher until now. I remember reading Aki’s other reviews at the beginning and noting how so many of her students stayed with her for a long, long time. :) While my daughter will take a break from italki for a while, I will keep Aki’s profile so we can find her again when the right time appears in the future. If you read back in Aki’s reviews you can find my earlier posts from time to time. They all boil down to the fact that I could not have picked a better Japanese teacher for my child. She is simply the best. ありがとうございます, Aki-sensei。またいつか会いましょう!

Aki-Sensei is an excellent teacher. She is attentive to the student and makes the lesson fun and engaging. She also made sure to communicate very well before the day of lesson to get to know a little about my daughter and made the lesson fun for her. Thank you so much! If you book with this teacher, you will not be disappointed! We will book again.

Today was my 125th lesson with Aki Sensei! 🎉 Little by little my conversation abilities are improving thanks to Aki Sensei. Even after all this time, I can really notice the drop off in my speaking skills on weeks like this when I have to miss the prior week’s lesson. I no longer worry about that as much as I used to since I know I will bounce back, but it’s good to be reminded that consistency is key 😊

My weekly Happy Conversation lessons with Aki Sensei have become a really important part of my study routine. It’s funny how it works - on any given week I often feel like I’m struggling but I can look back to a few months ago and see how much progress I’ve made. Her infinite patience with my clumsy Japanese is much appreciated, and she always gives me enough time to work out what I want to say. She is clearly a gifted and experienced teacher and I’m really glad I found her on this site!

Today’s lesson was fun but also a little more difficult than usual. Today’s conversation topics were on the more serious side, from politics to wars and family history. As always, Aki Sensei was patient and engaging while keeping the conversation moving at a good pace. Not surprisingly, I didn’t quite have enough vocabulary to discuss those types of topics, but Aki Sensei provided some gentle guidance to keep me going. For the first time in a long time, my brain was cooked by the end of the lesson! 😂

Today’s lesson with Aki Sensei was terrific as always. I was a little worried because I didn’t have time to think about any talking points before the lesson, but I was pleasantly surprised that I was still able to get the conversation going without those today. I’m excited to see how my trip to Japan goes next week - I’ve had 125 lessons with Aki Sensei since my last trip so I’m looking forward to seeing how much I will be able to understand and communicate this time!