*Beginners Japanese for English Speakers* - I have been where you are now! Personalised, One-to-one, Interactive with WhatsApp support in-between lessons

Find out more about Jennifer

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  From a young age I was fascinated with Japanese culture, from Kimonos to Tokyo fashion, it was somewhere that felt so far from my origins here in the UK and so alien that it really captivated me. When it came to choosing a subject to combine with Music at university, I literally had a dream, woke up and said to my mum, “I want to learn Japanese!”
  My fluency can be attributed to my year in Japan. I wanted to be the best I could be and so when all my flat mates went home for the summer, I stayed. I met a lady in a bar wearing a kimono and after talking to her for several hours, she said, “why don’t you stay with me for the summer?” I checked her out with my Sensei and they confirmed all of the details. It was this act of kindness, having me live with her, showing me what everyday Japanese life was like, introducing me to her friends and family that brought my level of Japanese far higher than level I was ever expected to achieve after that year. My sensei said to me that I had made the most progress in that year than anyone in the whole of the exchange programme. I will be forever thankful to my host mum for that experience that lead me to where I am today.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  Princess Mononoke. She is fiercely protective of the environment, puts nature and animals before herself and takes only what she needs in life. The Japanese as a whole are the same, communities of people that care about their slice of the world.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behavior in the language that you particularly like?

  I love the Japanese hierarchy in language and traditions around older generations. Older people are looked up to, respected and treated in such a lovely way. It is a future to aspire to, not to dread.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  Japanese is widely looked upon as a difficult language, a complex language of which there is no rhyme or reason to. That is absolutely untrue, it is incredibly logical, more logical than English. It is my passion to take the fear out of learning Japanese and ‘unlock’ it with tips and tricks that I have learnt along my learning journey.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  The main difficulty is the reading and writing, the hiragana and katakana (like Japanese alphabets). The hiragana is imperative to learn the phonetic alphabet to then improve speech because once you know all of the Japanese sounds, you can move on to sentence formation etc. Without it, you can only progress so far in learning the language. The learning of this is something that many learning apps overlook. It is literally the bread and butter of the Japanese language.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  The highlight of my learning journey in Japanese was when I told a Japanese dog to sit and he sat. I know it sounds simple but I thought, if a dog can understand me I must be doing okay!

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  My year in Japan was the best thing I could have done to progress in the language. I lived and worked in Japan and learnt an incredible amount of the language in the context of everyday living which you just wouldn’t find in a textbook.

• What makes you a Superprof in language?

  I have been where the students are when they start out. I learnt Japanese at an evening school before I went to Japan and for two years in a university in the UK. Still with all this learning I failed the assessment we all had when we went to Japan, we all did and I was top of the class at that time. I had to essentially learn Japanese again as a Japanese child would. This involved a huge amount of drilling and repetition but It also gave me an insight into how, based on this learning I could adapt it for westerners. It is based on my experiences as a westerner learning Japanese that I can offer a very specific service, tailored lessons for learning Japanese for English speakers.