Manuela Ito-Loidl

Hello, I am Manu, and I have been a Japanese teacher since 2010. I know the struggles of studying Japanese as a non-native speaker first hand. That's why I have poured my heart and soul into providing my students with the best lessons and study material for a hasslefree learning experience.

I am your tour guide. I’m here to give you insider information and show you new sides of the country you probably haven’t seen before!

My own learning journey started with the Nintendo game Super Mario Land. When I was eight years old I read the Club Nintendo magazine and learned that Super Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto, a Japanese video game designer. He was my idol back then, and I wanted to marry him. That didn’t happen, but my husband did end up being Japanese.

Next, I started watching anime in Japanese. But the subtitles weren’t enough for me and so I started taking Japanese lessons in 2004. However, I was disappointed with the way that Japanese was being taught, and by some of my teachers’ difficulties explaining things to me. I knew there was another way, so I began teaching Japanese myself in 2010, first in German and since 2019 also in English.

I live in the Japanese countryside, in the little-known prefecture of Fukui. Even most Japanese people do not know that it is the birthplace of Japan’s most popular rice, koshihikari. If you ever visit Fukui, let me know!

I’ll explain to you how Japanese sentences are constructed and why. I will help you avoid the mistakes I made when I was learning Japanese, by structuring explanations in a way that will make sense for native speakers of English!

Learning not only words and phrases but their background helps you understand and memorize them more easily. Studying a language is more than what meets the eye. It's about culture, history - and those little anecdotes I like to share with my students.

よろしく (Best regards),

マヌ Manu

PS: follow me on my social media channels (Japanese with Manu on facebook, instagram, youtube and podcast)