Japanese is the language of these famous people: Ryuichi Sakamoto(leader of Yellow Magic Orchestra), Akira Kurosawa (directed The 7 Samurai), Yoko Ono, Ichiro Suzuki (outfield for Seattle Mariners), Yukio Mishima (author of Forbidden Colors) and many, many more.

If you want to learn Japanese as a hobby, for business, or even to break into show biz, I can help you do it the fun way.

I have been teaching Japanese for almost 8 years, and I am a native speaker from Kyoto, Japan. I majored in translation in college, well actually the "subtitles" of movies from English to Japanese. Along your needs and level, I pick the topics. And if you already have a book to study with, we can work on that together as well.

I teach

1) Behind the Language
If you're asked what Japan is known for, you might immediately
think of cars, stereos, computers, anime/manga, sushi, tempura, and so on.
Japan is certainly known for these. But when describing the country,
these things only partially and somewhat superficially suffice.
Deeper knowledge of various aspects of Japan will help you learn
Japanese with much more ease. You will learn the culture from Japanese
traditional entertainment such as "noh", "kyougen" and "kabuki", "Haiku"
and "Tanka".

2) Japanese Sounds
Japanese has only 14 consonants and 5 vowels.
English has 24 consonants, and although it, too, has 5 vowels,
it has at least 12 vowel sounds. So most Japanese sounds are already
in the English sound inventory. But one of the reasons most
non-native speakers who don't sound like Japanese is they still speak
like English, although they pronounce each word correctly.
Japanese is a calm language.
The best way to learn intonation, pitch and pronunciation is to listen very
carefully a native speaker over and over and imitate those distinctive
patterns. If you also learn how to write/read hiragana/katakana,
that will help you a big deal.

3) Grammar
a. Japanese as a "free word order" language.
----- Keep the verb at the end of a sentence.
----- The rest of the word order is flexible.
b. Particles - much easier to learn Japanese
if you familiarize yourself with particles.
c. Simple is beautiful. - Japanese sentences might sometimes appear
incomplete because they lack a subject or object. Some first think
that Japanese is a "broken" language. On the surface, it might appear so,
but on the context level, it is not broken at all, just efficient.
d. Conjugation - You think Japanese conjugation is very complicated?
Well, English conjugation is more complicated.
Hundreds of irregular verbs exist, and there's no easy way to
systematically learn them. You just have to memorize each one of them!
Japanese grammar is not concerned with marking gender like Spanish,
number(singular or plural), or person(I, You, He, She, They, We or
whoever). All you need to know to conjugate words in Japanese is
whether the predicate is present or past tense, and affirmative or negative.
That's all!

4) How to write/read (optional, but strongly recommended)
Almost 99.9% of Japanese people can read and write Japanese (hiragana,
katakana, kanji). It is a lot better to know the language if you know how to read and write.

I teach those above, using Japanese songs, magazines, articles that you find interesting, Japanese cooking receipes(you get to learn the language AND how to cook some traditinonal meals) and TV dramas you can watch on weekends (CH8-cable, or CH26). I'll make the original lessons suitable for your needs and interests. So it's not a dead textbook language you learn but alive, useful, and it will sound more natural.

The lessons are held at a cafe in Berkeley, near Fruitvale BART station, Downtown Oakland or San Leandro, depending on the time and day you would like to have lessons, once a week at least. Group lessons at a private place is acceptable. I do not go to a private place to teach.

Group lessons are available for three or more people. If you're interested in group lessons, please find someone to join with you on your own. I do NOT arrange for you. So please don't ask if there are any group lessons available for you to join in. There's NONE.

Please make sure that you include in your email when you inquire, at least, 1. the reasons you'd like to study Japanese, 2. how you've learned it so far, 3. what you'd like to focus on, 4. when you have time available.

Deposit $20.00 is REQUIRED at the first meeting/lesson. So, for example, if you plan to take a 60min private lesson for the very first time, you need $40.00 in total; $20.00 for the lesson and $20.00 for the deposit.