AKI HAPPY

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 was the first lesson with Aki sensei, it was a great lesson! She prepared cards with different topics, such as: - If you could tell something to all people on the Earth, what it would be? - If you have a chance, would you go to the Mars? - What book made the biggest impression on you? I think its a great way to make lesson, every time we can pick different themes and discuss it. Your Japanese level will be improved much faster if you will speak on different themes everytime, in this way you can broad you vocabulary, and also you can heard what Sensei thinks about that, which is very interesting as we all have totally different backgrounds, and that that we can talk about anything online while studing language its just great. Thank you Aki-sensei, looking forward to the next lesson with you!

Today’s Happy Conversation lesson was great as usual. We covered a wide variety of topics, including kunoichi, company restructuring, favorite smells, Christmas cards, and (of course) food. Aki Sensei’s lessons are definitely a step above the usual conversation lessons where you only talk about the weather! Even though I don’t always have the right vocabulary for some of these topics, we can usually creatively work around that and still keep the conversation going 😅. After over a year of weekly lessons, we’re starting to near the end of Aki Sensei’s topic cards and I’m excited to see what will be next!

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.

I wasn’t exactly on top of my game today, with technical issues right before the lesson and interruptions during the lesson (all of which were my fault, sigh) - but I was still able to have a great lesson thanks to Aki Sensei! She is a truly fantastic teacher, and even when I’m not at my best I can still get great conversation and listening practice. She is always prepared with interesting conversation starter questions, infinite patience, and the ability to adapt to whatever level I’m at on a given day. I’m truly thankful that I’m able to work with such a great teacher!

Conversation lessons are a simple concept, but having a skilled teacher like Aki Sensei makes these lessons really effective. She instinctively adapts the conversation to just the right level, she gives me enough time to formulate my sentences, and she bails me out at just the right time when I get stuck. She gives great feedback but I never feel rushed, and she’s been an amazing teacher for me as I’ve moved from beginner level to (hopefully) intermediate. She’s not a miracle worker and I still need to study a ton on my own, but my weekly lessons with Aki Sensei have really helped me make progress!