2025 Japanese Output Challenge

Have you ever encountered a teacher who brought important changes to you in your life? For me, Noriko sensei is not just my Japanese teacher, but an important person in my life! I have been learning Japanese with Noriko sensei for more than half a year. From simply understudying a few basic words at the beginning of my Japanese learning journey, now I am able to share my daily life in the private lessons with the help of Noriko sensei. I enjoy talking with Noriko sensei on various topics, including little things, personal interests, books and travel experiences, etc. I am very grateful to Noriko sensei for her patient listening, timely grammar correction and supplementary language learning content. Also, when I shared my personal interests with Noriko sensei, she gave me a lot of encouragement and advice, from which I got inspired to start my path of creating a blog. It helps me gradually get closer to my ideal life! I not only saw the enthusiasm, devotion and professionalism as a teacher in Noriko sensei, but also felt empathy and warmth like a friend. Every time I take a private lesson, I always get a lot of energy from Noriko sensei. If you are also looking for such a teacher, I would highly recommend Noriko sensei's private lessons!

I have had Noriko as a teacher for over two years and I have never been happier with my Japanese level. Before meeting Noriko I had studied the language as a teenager for multiple years but never reached anything higher than lower intermediate. I then took a long break from it but a couple of years ago I decided to restart my studies and I am very glad that I found Noriko. As a starting point, we discussed what my interests, ambitions and proficiency were and Noriko has been great at adjusting her lessons to match those. And how entertaining her lessons are! I just have a great time studying with Noriko, who seems to easily answer any question I throw at her, be it regular grammar or some strange internet slang I came across. I would absolutely not hesitate to recommend her as a teacher.

I have been taking regular lessons with Noriko-san for over a year and a half now, and in that time I have been very happy with the progress I have made in my Japanese learning journey. Noriko-san is a patient teacher, and in that time my level has slowly grown from a near-absolute-beginner level, barely able to string a few words together, to my current level where we can freely talk about contents of novels and read them together (granted, still with lots of mistakes on my end but making progress!). Even in English I am not particularly strong at making conversation, but Noriko-san has a unique ability to keep the conversation going smoothly, deftly steering through topics throughout each lesson. Her vast library of outstanding podcasts provides extensive opportunity for discussion. She politely makes appropriate corrections during our conversations and saves them on a google document for later reference. She has built a welcoming community of supportive people learning Japanese from all over the world in Japanese Together, and she regularly holds meet-ups and challenges, and encourages interaction amongst the members.

Talking and learning with Noriko has been a highlight of my week of a couple years now! We have a great time chatting away and discussing culture, language, hobbies, and what’s going on in life. She’s helped me prepare for multiple JLPT exams, and my speaking has come so so far since I first started working with her. I’ll be going to Japan soon and feel much more prepared after all the studying and speaking. Noriko has also done a fantastic job reacting to how learning Japanese works best for me, and I look forward to learning much, much more! She really cares about her students and that shows.

I am so pleased to have found Noriko-san to help me accomplish my Japanese language goals! I have been taking lessons with Noriko-san for over three years now, and she has been instrumental on my language journey. I started as a complete beginner, and she has accompanied me step-by-step. I quickly found out she is a very engaging teacher. Starting with classical methods, she quickly introduced different techniques, methods, and medias to enliven the process, introduce variety to the courses, and maintain motivation. She adapted to my style of learning, pace, and interests to keep me driven and progressing. She encouraged participation, supporting errors rather than admonishing them. She is lively, kind, and empathetic which makes lessons interesting and fun. Lastly, she is enthusiastic about what she does and is extremely dependable. Her excellent English skills ensure she can support you when required. I look forward to progressing further with her in this beautiful and challenging language!