⭐ 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.

We had a great lesson today and as always I'm thankful for Mr Sato's time, attention and guidance!

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

Within this lesson I got a bit of clarification from Sato about how to differentiated よんだことがない and よんでない, the helpful example was through the question "おひるごはんを　たべましたか？" To which the answers 「いいえ、たべてないです。」　and 「 いいえ、たべたことが　ないです。」have vastly different meanings with the first being "I haven't eaten lunch" and the other being "I've never eaten lunch".

During today's lesson we grinded out more あげる／くれる／もらう sentences to improve my understanding of the grammar. I think I'm starting to get better at recognizing when to use what, but I think that a bit of finding the underlying subject of the sentence in English is still my biggest weakness when it comes to this grammar point. I need to understand how to underline the subject of a thought and then I will probably never mix up when to use あげる／くれる／もらう again. The hardest sentence was "Have you ever wanted to have your wife understand you?" because I wasn't getting who the subject and receiver/giver were, and then I understood eventually through Sato's help that the husband is the subject and the wife is the giver, so it's a もらう sentence.