Welcome to the Japanese Program at Southwest!

KONNICHIWA! 

My name is Nathan Hamel. I was once a student at Southwest myself, learning Japanese in the same classroom we are in today, in the same program that was started in 1991 by Kyoko French. After Kyoko's retirement in 2021, it has been my honor to grow this amazing program with all of you for the past  years!

A bit more about me: I majored in Asian Studies at St. Olaf College, after which I lived in Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan for two years, teaching English in five Japanese public high schools on the JET Program.  After returning home to Minneapolis, I got my Japanese teaching license and Master's of Education from the University of Minnesota, and passed the highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT N1).

Some of the most fun things I have done with my Japanese:

• Shared stories with travelers while hiking mountain trails in Hokkaido

• Played video games in Japanese

• Professionally translated academic papers (I'll be honest, there were moments when this was not fun)

• Wrote haiku in Japanese with students in a forest in Northern Minnesota at the immersion camp "Mori no Ike"

• Read over 500 Japanese books and manga (if you want to start reading Japanese everyday for fun like I do, just let me know. I can point you in the right direction! There is SO much great reading content in Japanese, most of which cannot be found in English! Short answer on how to get started reading Japanese: Just starting doing it. Modern tools like Rikaikun make this possible.)

• Studying and teaching Japanese at SW with all of you!

When I started in Japanese 1 as a student at Southwest, I knew almost zero Japanese. In other words, if I can do all of the above, so can you. Just like French sensei helped me get there when I was a student at SW, it will be my mission to help you get there on your language journey.

さあ、行きましょう！ A new journey begins!