My friend, Molly Brown, is an amazing film director and I acted on her RING parody.
We filmed it last year and it was released at a film festival called 'KINO London' on 20th of February 2020. Original RING is one of the most scary Japanese horror film but Molly's version is very funny and fun!!! The festival was a great fun! Congratulations, Molly!!! I am so proud of you.

There will be more screenings in the future! Please check from Molly's Twitter; 
​https://twitter.com/mollybrainz

Rodney is my oldest student who has been studying with me for the last ten years. We celebrated this amazing time together at The Ritz London. It was very nice of him to have treated me the gorgeous lunch and the nice drinks! We talked about this long period from the time we first started the Japanese course. I gave him my hand-made maccha cake as my great thanks. I am so proud of him, his energy is amazing and I am sure that he will keep improving his Japanese. He helped my English when I was taking MBA in Education Management. He also supports me by attending the anniversary of Arai Academy of Japanese Studies every year and giving some ideas about my YouTube videos. I am so happy as a Japanese language teacher to have such a wonderful student!

ロドニーさんは私の一番長い生徒でこの10年間一緒に頑張ってきたことをお祝いしました。ロンドンでも最高級のリッツ・ホテルでランチをご馳走になり、またこの10年間を振り返り、いろいろ語りました。ロドニーさんはとても勤勉で良く学び、授業では日本の新聞を読んでディスカッションし、そのエネルギーには感心します。思えば私が教育ビジネスのMBAを学んでいたころ、英語のチェックなどもしてくれたり、あらい日本語アカデミーを始めてからは毎年○周年記念のパーティーに必ず参加してくれ、YouTubeを始めてからは内容に関するコメントなどもしてくれます。このような生徒がいて本当に幸せです。お礼に私の手作りの抹茶ケーキをプレゼントしました。これからも一緒に頑張っていきたいと思います。

Happy 2020!  May the New Year bring to you a light to guide your path towards a positive destination and more awareness and self-development through cross-cultural interactions.

YouTube - 'SAMURAI' - Tsugaru Shamisen by Hareruya filmed on 01/01/2010

新年明けましておめでとうございます。昨年は大変お世話になりました。皆様にとって2020年がより深い学びと成長の年となりますようお祈りいたします。 本年も引き続きよろしくお願いいたします。

YouTube　ハレルヤによる津軽三味線「サムライ」2020年元旦撮影

The image source: BBC　​https://www.bbc.com/japanese/50029221

Arai Academy of Japanese Studies has donated  £331.45 to Japanese Red Cross Society on 29th October 2019 thanks to all the members. According to the recent reports;
- The death toll - 92 people (9 people are still missing.)
- The damages of 1,223 billion 80 million yen in farming, forestry and fishing industries 
- Over 53,000 flooded damaged houses
- The bank breakages on 71 rivers
- 482 landslides/sediment disasters

I  am so lucky to have all the wonderful members of Arai Academy of Japanese Studies and really appreciate for your warm support for my country, Japan. Thank you very much and I cannot say it enough really. 

Another heavy rain attacked East Japan on 25th of October 2019 and killed 10 people. I hope everything will be solved and the people can start their usual life as soon as possible.

あらい日本語アカデミーの生徒達、日本人メンバーの皆様のあたたかいご支援のおかげで、この度、日本赤十字社に「令和元年台風１９号災害義援金」として４５，６５０円を寄付させていただきました。このようなメンバーからのご協力が得られる環境にあることは大変ありがたいことであり、イギリス在住でありながらもこのような形で母国への支援ができることに大変感謝しております。

１０月２５日の大雨の影響でも１０名の方が亡くなられたと聞きましたが、一刻も早い修復、通常の生活が戻ることを祈ってやみません。

改めて、この度は皆様のご協力、誠にありがとうございました。

I undertook a Certified Sake Sommelier Course at Sake Sommelier Academy in October 2019. Everything was totally new for me about Japanese sake and how alcohol is made in general, but I have completed it and have received the certificate! It was a great challenge in such a different field but I enjoyed the course very much. Thank you for all my teachers. I have gained the extra knowledge about my country and I would like to make use of this experience into my Japanese teaching!

If you are interested in Japanese sake, please take a look at the link of Sake Sommelier Academy below.
https://sakesommelieracademy.com/

２０１９年１０月に酒ソムリエ協会主催の酒ソムリエ認定コースを受講しました。日本酒をはじめ、お酒自体の知識が皆無だった私ですが、この度無事修了し、酒ソムリエとしての資格を取得しました。ほっと一安心です。担当の先生方、大変お世話になりました。これで日本に関する知識がまた一つ増え、今後この知識を日本語教育へのスパイスとして活用していきたいと思います。

日本酒について学びたい方、よろしければこちらの酒ソムリエ協会のリンクをご覧ください。https://sakesommelieracademy.com/ja/

​Arai Academy of Japanese Studiesでは昨年春より日本人向けに英語教育のサポートも行っており、その際にMaSaMi先生も英語のチームに加わっていただくことになりました。この度、先生の長い経験からの独自の視点で学習上大切なポイントを述べた著書を出版されましたので、ご紹介させていただきたいと思います。

 ​Arai Academy of Japanese Studies

Today, I would like to say great thanks to all who have been supporting Arai Academy of Japanese Studies. It has been already four years since I established my academy. I have been lucky to have met so many wonderful people and have received a full of support. I cannot thank you enough to be honest and I am absolutely happy with the wonderful students and members.

The last one year, we donated to Japan Red Cross for the Japan Floods in August thanks to your kind support. And Lesley Downer, the journalist specialised in Japan, shared her six month experience with Geisha at JAPAN FOCUS and the Japanese and my students had great discussion afterwards. She is going to talk on  'The New Samurai' this September.

From January 2019, I have released YouTube lessons for the visitors to Japan to help smooth journeys, to reduce their stress and to help smooth interactions with the locals. I wish their wonderful trip by preparing themselves with the videos. And I would really appreciate if you could share the YouTube lessons with many people around you and could become the bridge between Japan and the tourists.

The English version is this link.https://youtu.be/lNBNwbMSoAU

Since June, the subtitled versions with many languages have been released with great help from those members below.

－The Dutch subtitles by Herman Deetman https://youtu.be/2-1K06t58eU
－The Spanish subtitles by Diego Costantino https://youtu.be/RYbxej9ZF_c
－The Italian subtitles by Serena Gasparrini and Giorgio Mallia https://youtu.be/YvhCImYXUKw
－The French subtitles by Matt Ward and Lauren Oudart https://youtu.be/GBeTu1w0O0Q
－The German subtitles by Uta Heil and Susanne Muller https://youtu.be/9tBJe0dx1VE
－The Chinese subtitles by Gavin Leung https://youtu.be/Xp32-nknUo4
－The Hindi subtitles by Shilpa Singh (currently working on it）

Also, Robert Herzig helped me to choose the best PC for drawing for the video lessons, Diego Costantino has been helping with the video editing and Mark Heyward has been helping with fixing endless problems of making the files for subtitles.  Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart!!! I could not make it without the great support.

By the way, I am looking for someone who can check the Korean subtitles done via Google translation. The video will help many  Korean visitors as they are the majority among the foreign tourists. I feel sorry for them about not releasing the videos yet. I really appreciate if you could introduce someone who might want to help this.

In May, Kumiko Ohta and Xavier Chapelou, the founders of Sake Sommelier Association, kindly invited me for presenting Japanese lessons at their event called 'JAPAN LIFE'. It was a great experience to have taught 'how to order sake' for those attendees. 

Since June, Hiroko Katayama has kindly helped to organise weekday Japanese Speaking Sessions & English Speaking Session. It has happened finally and I am glad many people started joining the event.

Again, thank you very much for all your wonderful support and amazing time! I really cannot appreciate enough. There will be the Speaking Session this Saturday and I will keep working hard on providing you the opportunities for your deep learning, cultural awareness and further self development.

Mineko Arai