Asami

Asami is an excellent and thoughtful conversation partner and instructor for advanced students. She is very open to working with me on my language learning needs (which can often be fluid). She is also open to exploring a wide range of topics (from the serious to the silly) in a way that feels like we're both learning, while also providing me with important tips/corrections/suggestions along the way. I can't recommend her enough!

毎週の週末、Asami先生と一緒に楽しく過ごされて本当によかったです。生活の中で日本語のことをいろいろと勉強になり、とても助かりました。ありがとうございます。

I had a good time today :). I talked a bit more, but it still wasn't much, haha. Hisako was being very cute and she was learning as well. Best nyanko ever. Erina was asleep in the bedroom. We talked about Shunbun no hi, Asami-san and her husband were busy with the temple preparations. I showed Asami-san some of my japanese potato chips and dagashi packagings from the collection that I have. Mystery box, haha. I was prepared for the usual "would you like a receipt, bag, tape, chopsticks," conversation but I was surprised we talked more about hot foods at the register like meat buns and coffee :). We also talked about large bills and how everywhere around the world it's bad to give a large banknote for a single, small item. We talked about the famichiki "all-you-can-eat" promotion and about robots taking over. I will try my best during conversations when I'm in Japan! 50 days left! がんばりましょう！

Asami is an amazing teacher! She is careful to speak very slowly, in a rate that is just perfect for my current Japanese level. She is incredibly patient in understanding what I'm trying to say and offering more natural phrasings when I get it wrong. In addition, she has many interesting stories and conversation topics. This was my 4th lesson with her (I think), and I feel my Japanese is greatly improving thanks to her.

Today we practiced hotel check-in and check-out and luggage storage. Later we talked about manners and rules in temples, shrines and at Torii gates. Hisako stole the show again, she was being too cute. She purred a lot. She was focused for 5 minutes and then went to sleep. We learned she works for Kuroneko Yamato - she is a black cat afterall. She likes working there because there's a lot of boxes to sleep in. 久子さんがまたもや主役をさらった。可愛すぎるんだ。ゴロゴロとよく鳴いていた。5分間は集中していたが、その後は眠ってしまった。彼女がクロネコヤマトで働いていることを知った——何せ黒猫だからね。そこで働くのが好きなのは、眠れる箱がたくさんあるからだそうだ。

Thank you once again for a great lesson! I wish I was confident enough to make mistakes and say something more than "はい". It's difficult. We continued the topic of ordering food today and I learned how to talk about allergies, how to order food without certain ingredients using ぬく and how I can use のみ like だけ. We did some math trying to sum up my order and talked about how to pay. I learned that you need to bring the bill to the restaurant staff to pay. Asami-san's laptop seemed to have a hard day as it was quite noisy during this lesson. This was the first time this happened. 素晴らしいレッスンをありがとうございました！もっと自信を持って間違いを恐れず、「はい」以上の言葉が言えたらいいのですが、難しいですね。 今日は食事の注文の続きで、アレルギーの伝え方、特定の食材を除いて注文する「ぬく」の使い方、そして「だけ」のように「のみ」を使う方法を学びました。注文の合計金額を計算する練習もして、支払い方法についても話しました。お会計は、レシートを店員さんにお渡しする必要があることを学びました。 浅見さんのノートパソコンは、今回のレッスン中かなり音がうるさくて大変そうでした。こんなのは初めてです。