Enrollment Steps

Since then I have been taking lessons with Yamafuji-Sensei. She is always very friendly, attentive and, most importantly, a great teacher. She keeps our lessons in Japanese, which I prefer—otherwise I might be tempted to speak in English instead of making the effort to speak in Japanese.

We talk about everything and she is always open to questions, be them about grammar, vocabulary or just where to find a traditional tempura restaurant in Tokyo. She let me select the grammar points I wanted to study/review and organized the course according to my preferences. The 50-minute class really flies by with Yamafuji-sensei; it never gets tedious.

The fact that I don't have to leave home to go to classes saves so much time, which I can reinvest back into studying Japanese.

I am not a hard tech user, but the Nihongo-Pro platform has been quite easy to use. I had a minor technical problem once (the video kept freezing), but all I had to do was logout and login again. My one suggestion would be to make a larger text-chat box, as it gets hard to read the kanjis. The payment system is also very simple.

I would also like to drop a word about Steve, the manager/technician/financial manager etc etc, who has been very helpful and efficient whenever I had a question.

Well, to summarize I am quite happy with my experience and Nihongo-Pro and have already recommended the course to other friends.

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 Fujiwara-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. Fujiwara 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.