About Japanese Tutor NZ

Personalised Japanese tutoring lessons from experienced and qualified Japanese tutors. With customised in-person and one-to-one video call lessons, and email reporting and personal study tips for each student.

Our Approach

1. Fully-Customised Lessons

We offer personalised lessons, designed for you, based on your goals in learning Japanese and your current language ability level.
We specialise in helping students with NCEA or JLPT assessments.

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2. In-Person Live Lessons

In-person live lesson either by video or at our teaching venue

3. Summary Email Reports

After every lesson, we provide a lesson summary, and additional notes and homework to help you continue your studies before you next lesson.

Our Tutors

Rie offers professional customised Japanese language tutoring in Auckland

Director & Head Tutor

Rie

I am an enthusiastic teacher of Japanese language and culture, having been teaching both in Japan and here in New Zealand to a variety of ages, abilities, and nationalities for over 12 years. This has included classroom lessons in Japan and at primary and high school level, as well as private tuition with university-level students. I pride myself on being a well-organised and diligent tutor and am always seeking the best for my students – whatever their personal Japanese learning goals may be!

Tutoring Experience

  • Private one-on-one tutoring at japanesetutor.co.nz 3+ years
  • International Exchange Centre – Japan, 6 years.
  • Auckland University tutoring programme.
  • Auckland Girls Grammar – part-time tutoring.
  • Freemans Bay Primary School – part-time tutoring.

I have a Certificate in Teaching Japanese (for non-native speakers) from Osaka Japanese Language Centre.

Flexible times and rate-structures available.

If you’d like to enquire about lessons or have any questions, please contact me using the form below or email me at rie@japanesetutor.co.nz

Profile picture of our tutor Mikee

Associate Tutor

Mikee

Hello everyone, my name is Mikee and I have graduated with a conjoint BA in Japanese and BMus in Flute performance from the University of Auckland. I used to live in Japan before COVID, have returned to Aotearoa, and am currently studying to get my postgraduate degree in teaching Japanese and ESOL. In my professional career, I’ve always been involved in some kind of education whether that was giving music lessons or English lessons in Japan, so even though Japanese is a new teaching subject for me, I hope I can bring some of that prior confidence and experience to our classes.

In my free time, I conduct a few different Auckland wind orchestras, play tons of different computer games, card games and board games, watch a lot of anime, read a lot of manga, practice the shamisen and go for walks with my dogs.

Nice to meet you!

Qualifications

  • Conjoint BA in Japanese and BMus
  • JLPT N3 endorsement
Our tutor Grace standing in city square

NCEA & JLPT N5 Specialist Tutor

Grace

Hi! My name is Grace, and I major in Japanese and Film Studies at Victoria University. I started studying Japanese in high school and quickly fell in love with learning the language, so I have since continued to study Japanese throughout NCEA and now at university.

I achieved Excellence endorsement in NCEA Japanese at levels 1, 2, and 3, and received the Top of Class award from my high school for Japanese every year from 2017-2020. In 2019, I was one of two students selected from my school to take part in a 3-month high school exchange in Sapporo, Hokkaido. After this wonderful experience, I knew that I wanted to come back to Japan for further study in the future so in 2022 I applied for the MEXT Japanese Studies Scholarship from the Japanese Government, and was lucky enough to receive this scholarship. I am now currently studying Japanese Language at Waseda University in Tokyo on this scholarship, since September 2022. I also have experience taking the JLPT, having passed N3 in 2021 and I am hoping to take the N2 exam by the end of this year!

I have tutored students of different ages in the past, including tutoring Japanese to high school students, and I found it was something I really enjoy. As someone with NCEA, JLPT, and MEXT Japanese Government scholarship experience, I think I can offer a lot of advice to learners of Japanese and share the knowledge I have gained over the years. Tutoring can be a very rewarding experience for both the student and the tutor, and I am really looking forward to helping other students enjoy learning Japanese as much as I do!

Qualifications

  • JLPT N2 endorsement
  • MEXT Japanese scholarship
  • NCEA Excellence in Japanese
Our tutor Grace standing in city square

NCEA & JLPT N5 Tutor

Mira

こんにちは! Hi there! My name is Mira and I have recently graduated from Takapuna Grammar School. I am a bright, bubbly and passionate person and love helping others and learning new things. I have many interests ranging from sports to music to travel, and learning Japanese has been a priority for me during my senior school years. I began learning the language in Year 11 in high school and have since been studying it for just over 3 years. I have achieved Excellence endorsements in my NCEA qualifications, as well as my JLPT N5 endorsement too – currently awaiting the result of my N4 test. As I move on to my next chapter in University, I plan on continuing my studies in Japanese, as well as helping and guiding my budding juniors to success too! I am excited to start tutoring Japanese and can’t wait to meet my future students and hopefully inspire and help them grow into native speakers one day!

Qualifications

  • JLPT N5 endorsement
  • NCEA Excellence in Japanese

What Our Students Say About Us

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Well structured and easy to follow lessons.

Pablo

Auckland

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Rie is a very kind teacher I enjoy our sessions and have improved a lot thanks to her. She makes our lessons fun and is really supportive which has made me more confident in my abilities coming up to my school exams. She caters the sessions to what you need help on the most and is very organised always sending notes with the vocabulary we went over after the lesson and preparing content in advance.

Alex

Auckland

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Rie is a fantastic teacher for students of any level. She tailors her teaching to your speed, and focuses on the outcome you want from your learning - whether that's to do well at NCEA, sit a JLPT, or give you the conversational skills to travel or live in Japan. I have enjoyed my lessons with Rie so much and my Japanese skill has improved immensely. I highly recommend Rie for anyone looking to learn or brush up on their Japanese.

Emma

Auckland

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Every week I am looking forward to my Japanese lessons with Rie-せんせい.
I have progressed so much since I started 9months ago.
She adapts the lessons to her student's needs and makes it a fun but nonetheless challenging experience. She also shares some information about Japanese culture, which is always interesting.
Definitely recommend if you are looking to learn or improve your Japanese.

Marie

Auckland

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Helps me not only improve on the reading and writing knowledge I need to pass my exams but the wider world concepts like speaking, listening, and cultural aspects too so that I can actually be able to put my knowledge into practice in the real world.

Mira

NCEA student