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Working hard
Here are some of the people who have made YesJapan.com possible.
picture George Trombley Jr. gtrombley@ttijapanese.com

George co-authored the Japanese From Zero! book series and designed the interface for the online lessons.

George lived in Japan for 9 years and now resides in Las Vegas, Nevada where he teaches Japanese at Japanese Classes by TTI and interprets Japanese for many large corporations on a sub-contractor basis.  George also designed the TTI and YesJapan.com website.

picture Yukari Takenaka ytakenaka@ttijapanese.com

Yukari is the main voice for the Online Lessons.  She teaches Japanese at Japanese Classes by TTI and co-authored the Japanese From Zero! book series.  Yukari was originally just a tourist visiting Las Vegas when she met George.  They were married in 1995.  Yukari was a dental hygienist for 10 years before moving to America.   Yukari has degrees in Japanese calligraphy,  studied Ikebana for 2 years and Kendo (sword fighting) for 3 years.

Keiko Hirata keikopan@yesjapan.com

Keiko is new to YesJapan.com.  She originally just started visiting our live classes in Las Vegas and eventually we came up with the George & Keiko Online Japanese Topics Show and then I realized the potential of Keiko.  As I write the section, she is recording sounds for missing sounds in Course 2 and 3.  Her voice is really great and you will hear it in many portions of Course 4 and 5.

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Pawel Szymczykowski pawel@yesjapan.com

Pawel, currently hanging out in Level 5 classes at Japanese Classes by YesJapan, is a college student majoring in Asian Studies and Information Systems.  He wrote the script for the NihonGO! Talking Dictionary and even named it.  Pawel worked on all of the original management tools for YesJapan.com and every now and then helps with the hard programming issues or big server problems.  W
ithout Pawel's programming skills and innovative ideas, YesJapan.com would not have been possible.  THANKS PAWEL!

We highly recommend Pawel's programming / design work.

Pawel's Current / Prior Projects:
Gaitomo.com (
YesJapan penpal site project) 
JapanFiles.com (YesJapan Japanese Music Site)
Jlist.com (huge site that sells Japanese things run by Peter Payne)

You can hire Pawel for your projects here:
CyberSpaceSamurai.com (business)
Pawelski.org
(personal)


picture Hideko Kubara kubara@ttijapanese.com

You will hear Hideko's voice all throughout YesJapan.com's Lessons.  Hideko works at a Japanese tour company in Las Vegas and spent many hours recording her voice for the Lessons.  Before moving to Las Vegas, Hideko worked as a secretary in a Japanese leasing corporation.  Hideko also studied Ikebana for 3 years in Japan.

Message From Hideko

The Kasahara Family (no e-mail available)

The newest voices to YesJapan.com.  You can hear the Kasaharas voices in Course 2 extensively.

Message from the Kasaharas coming soon.


Tadashi and Yoshiko Fukamachi (no e-mail available)

The Fukamachis' voices are all throughout course 3 and above.  Mrs. Fukamachi's voice is excellent.  She is one of the most polite speakers I know.  I have almost never heard her speak in an informal / rude way.  Mr. Fukamachi is an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor and they run the Fukamachi Clinic in Takasaki city, Gunma Prefecture which is a one hour ride on the shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo.

On a side note, Mr. Fukamachi is a big car buff and has 2 super clean Ferraris in the garage next to his clinic.  Also it is interesting to note that the Fukamachis actually own the house next to where George and Yukari live (above) in Las Vegas.  They bought it after Yukari joked that it was available.


Rimi Nonaka (no e-mail available)

We really needed a child's voice for some of the conversation's in Course 2 Lesson 7.  So we asked Rimi's mother if Rimi was available.  Luckily Rimi was perfect for the role and we even got her mother to say a few lines.  Rimi lives in America but both of her parents are Japanese and it is her native language.  She is the youngest official voice used on that site at 6 years old.


Thank you Rimi chan!
Message From Rimi

picture Reiji Tsugawa (no e-mail available)

Reiji came in contact with TTI while being a guest in Japanese Classes by YesJapan's classroom.   He currently lives in Japan but recorded his voice for Course 1 and 2.  During his stay in America he studied statue design among other things at Treadway Industries in Las Vegas.


We will definitely bring Reiji back to Las Vegas to record for Course 3 through 5.
Message From Reiji

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Yousuke Mori (no e-mail available)

Originally from Japan Yousuke was transferred to Las Vegas with his wife Kumiko and 4 year old daughters Sayaka as the branch manager of ANA Hallo Tours.  Mr. Mori's voice is used near the end of Course one.

Message From Yousuke

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Kumiko Mori (no e-mail available)

Kumiko is was a ANA Airlines stewardess when she met Yousuke.  Kumiko is busy raising her lovely daughter Sayaka and Manami.

Message From Kumiko

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Sayaka Mori (no e-mail available)

Sayaka is now 4 years old.  When she was just 2 and a half years old she insisted on leaving a message for the students taking the online lessons.

Message From Sayaka

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Vanessa Kuroda vanessa@yesjapan.com

Vanessa has been top of her class for the last 6 years.  Her mother is the Japanese professor at the University of Las Vegas (UNLV).  Vanessa started finding mistakes on the online lessons and for fun we made her the editor.  But she has turned out to be quite a problem finder and a valuable contributor to YesJapan.com.   She finds the hardest to find mistakes and lets us know.  Pretty impressive for an 11 year old.   

Copyright School Icons Club
no real pic yet
but she looks just like this I bet!

Makorin makorin@schoolicons.com

Makorin lives in Okayama, Japan.  She uses Computer-Assisted Instruction to teach elementary to 9th-grade students and really knows her way around the computer.  We had Makorin create some of her original "very cute" art for us to give the lessons more lively feel to it.  All of the characters were inspired by her work.  The current characters are remakes of her originals.  If you are looking to spruce up your personal website then visit Makorin's super cool website.  School Icons CLUB.  


School Icons Club

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