Yasu

My lesson with Yasu went well. It was also a reminder of why (in my opinion) it is so important to work with a competent native speaker. I know that many websites say you can learn a language all by yourself. But, I don't think that is true. I think you need a skilled teacher like Yasu. He has been very, very helpful to my learning/understanding of Japanese.

1st class. Have you ever watched YouTube videos of a Japanese guy nitpicking foreigners' Japanese in a friendly way. It was like that which is what I was looking for. Almost all Japanese speakers tell foreigners that their Japanese is fantastic, which is really nice, but doesn't help us improve. So doing the pronunciation lesson with Yasu sensei was time extremely well spent in my quest to sound better. Thank you!

Excellent class! Today, we worked on 〜てください and how to conjugate the verbs to create sentences. I appreciate his gentle corrections and his patience while I try to pronounce various words in a natural manner, especially ください。I tend to rush my pronunciation, and leave out sounds, so I am grateful for this class. I will continue to practice until I can say it perfectly. I am determined! :) ありがとうございました　やすせんせい！

After taking lessons with Yasu for two years, my Japanese has improved tremendously. Yasu is able to change the level of detail in our sessions based on my needs. Some days I wish to focus on quantity and we cover overarching mistakes but focus on conversational flow, and other days I want to focus on quality and he analyzes sentence-level mistakes and corrects my phrasing to sound natural. Also, Yasu's voice coaching background gives him unique insight into common pronunciation pitfalls when speaking Japanese. During lessons, he compares my pronunciation and proper Japanese pronunciation, with tips on how to change my tongue positioning to sound more native. He is also knowledgeable with linguistics and we have in-depth conversations on nuances of consonant and vowel pronunciation. For those interested, Yasu also covers pitch accent, which many tutors ignore. I would highly recommend lessons with Yasu, and especially so if you are interested in improving your Japanese accent.

Today we focused on "ka--か” or one usage of "ka". we also practiced sentence building/structure, and repeating-- I need consistent repetitive review so his step by step way of teaching is very helpful.

My lessons generally cover multiple aspects of Japanese. Today Yasu helped me with sentence building and structure. I also learned about particles, vocabulary, grammar etc. There are many characteristics built in to a sentence : )