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!

Aki Sensei, Merry Christmas! 🎄 Today was a special Christmas and End of Year lesson, and it was a lot of fun as usual. We talked a little about the “year end health care spending” in America and other things I’ve been doing lately, and then we pivoted to my 2025 highlights. As we were talking, I realized how far I’ve come this year with my Japanese. I still have a long way to go, but I’m understanding so much more now than I could in January. And this was the first lesson where I didn’t have to look up a word in the middle 😅 My weekly lessons with Aki Sensei have been a big part of this progress, and I truly appreciate all that she does. 先生、良いお年をお迎えくださいね

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.

In today’s lesson, I was reminded of the importance of regular conversation practice 😅 Despite regular self-study over the past few weeks, I could barely put a sentence together during the first 10 minutes of today’s lesson. Fortunately Aki Sensei was very patient until I could get my brain working again, and then we were able to have a great lesson as usual. I wasn’t really able to answer the final question today during the lesson, so I will answer it here: 今年の抱負は一つだけあります。今年は時間の使い方がよくなりたいです。例えば、暇な時にSNSを見る代わりに、漢字を勉強したり日本語で本を読んだりしたいんです。去年にJLPTの準備時に、そういうことができたから、今年続けたいですよ。

I always enjoy my classes with Aki. We meet once or twice a week and we’re using the Genki I text as a curriculum guide (since I already had a copy). Classes are always fun and I’m happy with my progress in Japanese. Aki is consistently positive and helpful in explaining things and answering questions. I also very much appreciate our Japanese conversations that we have when we begin each class. This time is helping me feel more comfortable in conversational Japanese, put my beginner level Japanese into practice, and helping to commit my learning into memory. I’m looking forward to my ongoing Japanese learning journey!