I majored in Japanese at Brigham Young University and was a missionary in Tokyo for two years. My mother is also Japanese, so I'm fairly familiar with the culture. Despite having a Japanese mother, she didn't teach us for very long, so I had to learn it the hard way like most people learn.
I know what it's like to go through the normal school system and not learn very much. However, while I was in Japan, I was taught a much more efficient and simple way to learn the basics of Japanese grammar and how to construct meaningful and useful sentences. So that's what I try to help my students learn, especially with beginners.
I have a systematic way where we learn first using Nouns (desu), the 2 types of adjectives, and then verbs (Masu), and then creating phrases that you can then formulate to create sentences and have a conversation eventually. It is what really helped me crack the code when I was really confused with learning Japanese in school. I would love to help if you if I can!
I believe that learning this way gets students using sentences much more quickly and really understanding the "big picture" when it comes to speaking Japanese.
I'm excited to help you crack the code and speak some Nihongo!
I enjoy seeing students get excited about learning or when they finally get it, and have that "aha" moment. I personally love to learn things from teachers that make things simple and understandable, and I try to do the same for my students!
