⭐ Ejderha Sato ⭐

As 2023 concludes with today's lesson, it’s time to reflect on a year and a half of learning Korean! I am deeply and incredibly thankful for discovering Sato! While I began the year familiar with many words, now I can engage in basic Korean conversations. My proficiency in conjugating between past, present, and casual to polite tenses has grown significantly. Sato's teaching skills are evident; he gauges precisely when to challenge me and when to allow independent exploration. Whenever I struggle with a concept, his patient explanations ensure clarity. He will always keep at it until I have fully grasped the topic. His organized Google Docs of lesson notes are invaluable, and his commitment shines through—even when responding to late-night questions! Beyond language, Sato also adds invaluable insights into Korean culture and lifestyle. His meticulous attention to my pronunciation ensures I sound as authentic as possible. Truly a dedicated and skilled instructor! Thank you!

Another fun and very helpful lesson with Sato-sensei! I appreciate his patience and understanding when I forget vocabulary or make mistakes. And I'm super enjoying the pace and really am absorbing the new information well. I also enjoy all the cultural and language context that he gives as we go through the lesson. It gives so much more life and meaning to learning Japanese. I also found it very easy to study up on the previous lesson thanks to the Google Doc notes and organization.

Thank you for another great lesson! Sato sensei was quick to point out tendencies in my conversation skills, and we also went over more grammar rules.

As another year studying with Sato San is finishing, I feel the need to write a proper review. A new year's resolution two years ago changed my life, I decided to try learning another language and shortly after discovered Sato San. Looking back after almost 100 lessons it is hard to believe we've come so far. Starting from scratch, we are now conducting class in almost exclusively Japanese. I am still far from proficient, but feel like I have an extremely solid foundation to build my intermediate level Japanese on. Sato San's style of teaching puts the ball in your court as a learner. The amount of information and study material he provides is abundant, its up to you as a student to study and apply. We have come a very long way together and I am very grateful as a student to have found such a great guide on my language Journey. We continue to trudge towards the metaphorical peak of Everest together. Sato San- 本当に　ありがとうございました

In today's lesson I went over a lot of treaded ground in forms of the warm up and attempts at explaining my day and such. Such as ます-stem+に, て＋も and when I was overusing that て＋もらう when I was asking if we could continue a specific part of the lesson, which I realized could come off as rude and asked Sato to help me figure out the best possible way to make such a request. Also during the lesson I went over again how to talk about phone talks, specifically talking with someone else on the phone with 彼と電話で話す. There was then the introduction of how to emphasize that someone is in the middle of doing an action, たべて(い)るところだ. An extension of the other ところだ’s but not too much of a difference from its base form. It's useful for describing someone having been in the action of doing something.

In today's lesson I learned that I was under the wrong impression about and didn't pay attention when Sato told me about ぜったい＋POSITIVE and how it's actually still a negation, but it's a negation of a negation. Also I was all over the place in pitch accents and I learned to use WORD+類義語 in google search to find synonyms for words in Japanese.