Enrollment Steps

First, it's not easy to find a lesson time suitable for both teacher and student when they live thousands of kilometers apart.

I am a 53-year old European student, and, due to job commitments, I can take lessons only on weekday evenings. With Nihongo-Pro, I had no schedule problems at all, since my teacher lives in the U.S., which gives me many more scheduling options than with teachers living in Japan.

Having tried several languages schools in the past, I really appreciate the high quality of Nihongo-Pro's classroom software. Really well-thought out and extremely easy to use. There were extremely few technical problems, and they were solved very quickly thanks to quick support. The classroom software is always improving and evolving, too, with new features.

Now about teaching: I am really happy about the lessons (several dozen already!) I have taken with Nakano-sensei.

Intermediate level is a tough step, where you have to find your way through the intricacies and subtleties of intermediate-level Japanese grammar, as well as spoken Japanese, which differs quite a lot from the "proper" didactic language you learn at elementary level.

At the intermediate level, understanding often depends on nuances and on your acquaintance with Japanese culture. Nakano sensei is a wonderful guide: She gives careful thought to how to explain the difficult points of Japanese, and she always works painstakingly to answer my questions, to provide the best examples, to show the differences between similar words or grammatical structures.

When you take private lessons, the quality of human contact between teacher and student is essential. When I take a lesson at Nihongo-Pro, I am pleased to meet both an excellent teacher and a friend.

In the beginning I was not sure how good the online Japanese lessons would be . I had a test session with Steve, a very nice support person, where we discussed my goals and how to achieve them. After that I had my trial lesson with Ogihara Aki sensei.

The classes with Ogihara sensei are superb: her Japanese lessons are entertaining, and she is a gentle and patient teacher. Her teaching method is 100% efficient and helped me realize the need for an experienced and native teacher in the language. Also, Ogihara sensei speaks Spanish fluently, which I appreciate as a Spanish native speaker myself. Thanks to the motivation and support that Ogihara sensei has given me during classes and with extra work, I have managed to increase my level of Japanese very quickly and meet my goals. Now I am preparing for the JLPT and I am sure I will score a perfect 100!

Finally, let me add that I highly recommend Nihongo-Pro; the teaching platform is very good and technological. It is easy to use and share information, even practice kanji with ProPad.