My journey with Japanese started well over 20 years ago being fascinated with anime and videogames from a young age. There weren’t very many classes to study the language around me. So, I decided when I was a young adult, that I would study in Japan at a Japanese language school and the rest was history.

Even though I went to a language school, I never really had the attention or focus on correcting my mistakes from my school. I learned things quickly, but those things were from experiences outside of school. I didn’t honestly get much speaking practice even in school. I picked up things from part time jobs, friends, tv, and so on. And just living and learning in Japan as most of my adult experiences were from a Japanese perspective and a had a whole new language to learn also.

I also became really shy at speaking. Many Japanese would go “huh?” “what?” “speak english”. It would hurt my feelings so much that I would run back to my apartment and cry. And so I became to hate to speak Japanese very much and pretty much gave up on the idea of really learning it. So I quit for a while and only studied passively and never really improving.

I had a son after returning to America and where I live there are a lot of Japanese and Japanese companies. So, I enrolled him at Japanese-English immersion preschool and Japanese-English immersion elementary school. Seeing him progress in the language I felt I had no choice but to start using Japanese again to help him because he was struggling keeping up not only in English subjects but now even Japanese. His school subjects are half in English language and half in Japanese daily. So, to help him with his homework and such I found myself using Japanese more and more and using it to communicate with other Japanese parents and help with events at his school.

I decided to help inspire him to keep up learning by making a promise that we would study together. So I ended up finding Chika sensei’s course after watching many YouTube videos with my son as we find things to watch to practice listening to Japanese. And I decided I would finally get serious about studying again.

My life is very busy but Chika sensei’s courses are very flexible and allow me to study little by little at my own pace if needed. In a short time I have improved a lot. And she corrects the gaps from my knowledge that I have not used in years or things that were never completely taught correctly to me. I know some advanced things and forgot some basics but she quickly helps with it. I love how she takes the time to explain it correctly to me and she cares enough to help and understands me. That is a big plus for me. She understands my speaking! I went so many years thinking I was horrible and no Japanese could understand me. But Chika sensei gives honest feedback and I can tell she is even looking for the smallest things to help me improve.

I am enjoying the N2 course and Intermediate speaking course very much. It might take me a while, but I know with her help, my speaking will get even better, and I will pass N2 and eventually N1 someday. I hope to be an inspiration to my son.

Thank you, Chika sensei!