Award-Winning Japanese Tutors
serving Jackson, MS

Learning Japanese means juggling three writing systems, a grammar structure that's the reverse of English, and cultural nuances that change how you speak depending on who you're talking to. Natasha taught Japanese at the high school level and lived in Japan teaching in elementary schools, giving her the kind of practical fluency that makes hiragana drills, particle usage, and conversational practice feel grounded in real life. She's 5.0-rated and works with beginners through advanced learners.

Growing up attending the Japanese Weekend School of New Jersey while enrolled in American public schools, Hidefusa developed native-level fluency in both languages and a deep understanding of where English speakers stumble with Japanese. He teaches everything from hiragana and katakana basics to kanji recognition, particle usage, and keigo (formal speech) — drawing on the bilingual instincts of someone who has lived in both linguistic worlds.

Learning Japanese means juggling three writing systems, unfamiliar grammar structures, and a set of politeness registers that don't exist in English. Katharine brings a methodical, pattern-oriented mindset to breaking down concepts like particle usage, verb conjugation groups, and kanji radicals so that each lesson builds logically on the last.

I currently work for an afterschool enrichment program (Best Brains) tutoring elementary English and math, and I have 4+ years of experience as a private ESL tutor for both children and adults. I am working toward my Masters of Science in Secondary English Education and ESL at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. I graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative World Literature and Japanese, and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Master of Arts in Japanese Language and Literature. I began tutoring while I was in high school, assisting with algebra homework. In college, I volunteered as a kindergarten reading assistant through a program called Start Making a Reader Today. I later volunteered while in graduate school at a local high school tutoring students in beginner Japanese. I have also been employed by the University of Wisconsin as a Teaching Assistant, and taught in Religious Studies and East Asian Studies. In all cases, it has been a pleasure watching students progress in their academics and to see them grow as young scholars. I especially enjoy teaching language arts because of the feeling of connection that language can bring. My favorite part of teaching is seeing the smiling face of someone the moment that they finally "get" something they've been struggling with and watching their confidence boost. In my free time, I host a small book club, pen pal with friends around the world, and try my hand at new recipes.

Having prepared for and taken the SAT Subject Test in Japanese with Listening, Dylan brings practical fluency in grammar structures like particle usage, verb conjugation groups, and honorific registers. He tackles reading comprehension by teaching students to decode kanji compounds in context rather than relying purely on rote memorization. Rated 5.0 by students.

Mechanical engineering at the University of Dayton doesn't obviously connect to Japanese, but Nicholas's systematic problem-solving mindset lends itself well to breaking down kanji radicals, verb conjugation groups, and particle logic into repeatable patterns. He's also genuinely social and talkative — a trait that matters more than you'd think when practicing conversational Japanese, where comfort with speaking aloud is half the battle.

Most students learning Japanese hit a wall somewhere between mastering hiragana and actually constructing sentences with particles, verb conjugations, and counters. Kai has been teaching Japanese through the student organization meetings on campus, building lessons that move learners from basic self-introductions to reading short passages and holding simple conversations.

Between his East Asian Studies major at Harvard, his presidency of the Harvard College Japan Initiative, and his work in the Yenching Library's Japanese Collection, Shane lives and breathes Japanese. He reads novels and plays games in Japanese for fun, which means he teaches the language the way it's actually used — from kanji recognition and particle usage to the register shifts that textbooks barely cover.

I am motivated in addressing the disparities in educational equity here in the Twin Cities, particularly for students of color and students of differing socio-economic backgrounds. I work to build strong relationships with students to determine the strengths and knowledge they bring to the table.

A drama degree might not scream Japanese fluency, but John's literary work — he's a section editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and literary manager for two theater companies — means he's deeply attuned to how language shapes meaning, tone, and register. That sensitivity to nuance transfers directly to navigating Japanese's layered politeness levels and context-dependent sentence endings. Rated 5.0 by students.

Having majored in Japanese at SUNY Albany, James doesn't just know the language — he understands the grammar architecturally, from particle usage and verb conjugation tiers to the nuances of honorific speech. He teaches reading and writing through cultural context, connecting kanji compounds to their historical roots so students retain them long-term rather than cramming and forgetting. Rated 4.9 by students.

Most students stall in Japanese once they move past hiragana and katakana into kanji recognition and grammatical particles like は versus が. Wahala minors in Japanese at Indiana University Bloomington and treats the language as a system to decode — connecting sentence structure, verb conjugation patterns, and cultural context so that reading and conversation reinforce each other.