Eng 
日本語 
Name: Daryl O
Course: Japanese Business Course – Intensive
Occupation: Attorney
Japanese Level: Upper Intermediate / Advanced
What brought you to Japan? Why are you taking this course?
This is my second time living in Japan. – My first time in Japan I followed a love of the culture and a decision to pursue an interest and seek adventure. My undergrad minor was Japanese history; learning about Japan spiked an interest in wanting to live there. I promised myself that before I settled down and got a regular 9-5 with a car and a dog I would experience living in Japan.
After living in both the city and the country and picking up a decent amount of Japanese – I went back to the states, went to law school, became an attorney, and focused on my career. Over time, I worked with more and more Japanese clients – which turned into more field work with Japanese clients – and a natural need to spend more time in Tokyo.
I felt my Japanese had a solid base. But I wanted to improve to a point where I could feel confident speaking with c-suite executives and Japanese business leaders. Making the right impression is important. To that end, I wanted to solidify and build on my skills for Business-level Communication.
How did you find out about the course and why did you choose to study with Coto Japanese Academy for Business Japanese?
I spoke with a fellow attorney about my need to level up my Japanese and he solidly recommended Coto to me after studying there himself.
Visiting Coto’s website and researching other schools made the benefits clear: Coto put a premium on making information easy to access and understand. The staff I interacted with were very helpful setting up the interview to gauge my level and answer questions.
I was impressed that even during the Skype interview the teacher was willing to give me advice and reassurance on my rusty Japanese – even though it was primarily a level check.
In sum, it was an easy decision to take an intensive business course with Coto.
Were your expectations met and did you achieve what you hoped to?
It met and quite honestly exceeded my expectations. For an experience like this you want to have a balance of challenge and understanding. You should feel comfortable in the class to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes – learn new concepts, and practice those concepts. What you don’t want is to just sit there and do rote memorization.
I taught English in Japan – so I was able to understand this course from the teacher’s perspective. I think the Instructors did two things very well: giving us opportunities to challenge ourselves when needed, and giving us opportunities to go back and practice concepts so that we can review and reinforce them.
Overall there was a very good balance in materials and teaching methods. I highly recommend this course and I will be continuing on with other Advanced courses at Coto. It’s a great place – and I feel very confident in the decision I made to study here.
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