Takeshi Hinai is this month's Learner of the Month. He is 33 years old and lives in Sapporo, Japan. He is an engineer, but at the moment he is organizing a ski competition which will be held in Japan next February.
Takeshi studied English at junior high school, high school and university for a total of ten years. After studying English for ten years, he still couldn't speak English with native speakers when he went on a ski trip to Canada. When Takeshi returned to Japan, he decided to study English again. He tried two different methods. First, he attended a very famous English school, but quit shortly after he began. There were often at least eight people who attended the discussions so he had very little chance to speak. Takeshi goes on to say, "The education at school was horrible. It didn't work at all. Even the teachers couldn't communicate with native English speakers!" Takeshi also started taking private lessons via the telephone, which he found to be very effective. In fact, he still participates in these telephone conferences from time to time, but they are very expensive.
When asked how The Linguist is different from other English learning methods, Takeshi replied: It is inexpensive, therefore, I have a lot of chance to speak English. Also, The Linguist content is interesting and teaches me very useful vocabulary. This is the major difference between The Linguist and other online schools, which only have a few boring content items to study.
Takeshi is very motivated to study and he spends more time studying than ever before. Speaking is his favorite activity. He much prefers learning through natural conversation rather than through role-playing and grammar exercises. After being a member of The Linguist for only three months, Takeshi's coworker told him that his English had improved.
