Kaoru Yamamoto

I already had more than 50 lessons with Kaoru and I take so much out of each lesson. Kaoru is positive, optimistic, patient and motivating. Kaoru always responds to my wishes and implements them so quickly in our lesson that I am surprised every time. So I was able to prepare perfectly for my Japan trip, for an event, for concerts etc. and thanks to her I also passed my JLPT exam last year, where she continues to help me with grammar for the next exam. In class, Kaoru encourages you to speak Japanese too, and gives you enough time to think and also helps you along. I am not afraid that I might say something wrong or make mistakes. Like, you only learn from mistakes, right ;-) Learning Japanese on my own is not easy, but with her help it is much more fun and within a year I have learned so many new things that I would not have learned from a textbook or anywhere else. I can recommend Kaoru to anyone who is tired of boring textbooks and who needs some support in their self-study.

This is the 2nd lesson I've had. I've had about 9 italki teachers, both professional and community tutor, and no one has been bad but I can confidently say that Kaoru pays the most attention to detail by far of anyone I've talked to. She'll make specialized lessons based on your interests and will actually type out what you say so that you have a record of your mistakes and how to correct them, along with any new words or sentence suggestions.

Those lessons help me so much with self-study. They are super fun, interactive, informative and fit my needs perfectly. Every week I look forward to the lessons and they always leave me feeling like my time was well invested! I learn a lot - each lesson has enough structure to prevent me from feeling lost but enough flexibility to keep it entertaining and interactive. They are just perfect for me. Thank you so much, Kaoru-sensei! ^^

Kaoru 先生 always has lessons that are fine-tuned to your current level, even if your skills (listening, reading, speaking, etc) are uneven. I think when selecting a tutor it is important to have personalized lessons for each individual, and for this reason I highly recommend taking lessons with her!

She does a wonderful job preparing the lesson and tailoring it to follow along with the previous lesson

I've done 18 lessons with Kaoru so far, and the difference between from when I began and now is night and day. Kaoru really cares and puts a lot of energy into her lessons. She often calls back to previous lessons, even ones from many weeks ago(occasionally ones even I can't recall immediately!) when relevant to reinforce a topic. The only way to learn how to speak is to practice, and it is especially valuable to be able to practice with someone who not only cares, but also has the mind to learn about your weaknesses, strengths, etc. and use that to guide the practice. Such teachers are truly rare, so if you are self studying or otherwise, I highly encourage you to book a lesson with Kaoru.