chocochip

Japanese courses for beginners and advanced. TIME: 7pm to 9pm, Tuesdays for beginners, Thursdays for advanced (not very advanced - however, if we find enough people interested we might start offering classes to you as well!) PLACE: Victoria Hall Methodist Church, Sheffield city centre (the entrance is on CHAPEL WALK, off Fargate) The course will teach you Japanese that will be useful when visiting Japan and meeting Japanese people. Lessons are practical, activity based and designed for complete beginners as well as people who have already learned some Japanese but would like a refresher and/or learn more! Lessons are two hours long each week and the first course finishes the w/c 12th of December. One class is £10 if you pay week by week, and we can offer discounts if you pay for the whole course in advance! Contact Liina at liina@chocochip-languages.com to ask any questions or book your place now!

10-Week Course: Speaking Japanese for Beginners DATES: May 12th to July 14th TIME: 7pm to 9pm PLACE: Victoria Hall Methodist Church, Sheffield city centre (the entrance is on CHAPEL WALK, off Fargate) The course will teach you Japanese that will be useful when visiting Japan and meeting Japanese people. Lessons are practical, activity based and designed for complete beginners as well as people who have already learned some Japanese but would like a refresher. Lessons are two hours long each week for 10 weeks, and cost £10 per lesson if you pay week by week. However, if you would prefer to pay upfront you will receive a 20% discount, bringing the cost down to £80 for the complete course. Contact Amelia on 07580 637391 or at ameliacook.jp@gmail.com to ask any questions or book your place now!

Thank you everyone, this is very helpful! I have more options than I thought I had, which is always good.

A licence sounds more suitable, thank you for the heads up on the differences between those. £50 per week would be ideal, but so far the cheapest I've found is £250 including rates, electricity and water. I'd like to negotiate that down a bit, do you have any advice on how I might go about that?

That would be really nice, do you have any advice on how to get them down to that? I have zero negotiating experience and have never rented an office before so my lack of knowledge puts me at a severe disadvantage! I'm viewing one office this Friday, I want to be prepared.

I've started looking around for a small office, no more than 150 sq ft. I don't need anything fancy, not even furniture if that adds to the cost. I will not be meeting potential clients in this space or holding meetings there. I just need a quiet, closed off space to do some work and use for light storage - my one-bedroom flat is stuffed with stationery and flyers, and my partner is not impressed! I'm looking on the Cathedral side of the city for convenience as that's the side I live on, so Victoria Quays, Kelham Island, Neepsend etc. I could be tempted to the other side of the city by a cheap pricetag, but I don't drive so wherever it is must be within a mile or so of the city centre, reasonable walking distance laden down with a full suitcase and whiteboard. Does anyone have any idea what would constitute a good deal for these sorts of requirements? What should I most definitely not be charged extra for, and what extra charges are fair enough? How much should I be paying for these things? In this economy are office space providers more willing to negotiate? If so, on which points? Is there anywhere I should steer clear from? Anywhere on a low budget that comes highly recommended? Thank you!

Are you talking about StartUp Britain? I believe most of the 'money' is actually in the form of discounts off highly paid services and contracts from other big businesses, not an actual cash injection. It's coming under some criticism for it from entrepreneurs and other start-up organisations.

I agree it's an excellent opportunity for both sides, just be aware of the legality of what you ask them to do for free. In this article it says: "The legal definition of what constitutes work includes having set hours; being engaged for an extended period of time and being given a defined role rather than just observing." So, by the sounds of it, keep the internship short and flexible, and make their time there more a taster of various aspects of your company than actual employment in a specific role. Keeping them short has another advantage: you can offer the opportunity to more people, and demonstrate inclusivity by accepting women, ethnic minorities, disabled and otherwise disadvantaged candidates on to your internship programme. Remain focused on what you can give them rather than what you can get from them, err on the side of generosity and each and every one of these interns will do your PR for you.

Beginner's Japanese Crash Course: speak, read and write Japanese in just 6 hours DATE: Saturday 16th April LOCATION: St Matthews Church, 45 Carver Street, Sheffield city centre (just off Division Street) TIME: Morning session: 9.15am to 12.15am. Afternoon session 12.45pm to 3.45pm. CONTENT: A comprehensive introduction to speaking, listening, reading and writing in Japanese. - In the morning learn basic Japanese grammar, vocabulary and conversation skills, then chat one-on-one with a native speaker to test your new skills. - In the afternoon cover every character of Japan's two alphabets and learn how to combine them into natural written Japanese. Both sessions are active, hands-on and teach you useful, practical Japanese. By the end of the day you'll have a solid foundation that will be useful if you plan to carry on studying or visit the country at some point. EXTRAS: We'll throw in some Japanese snacks and drinks completely free! COST: Normally £40 for both sessions, this will cost just £30 for the entire day! We will be offering a 10-week course of evening classes from May 12th to July 14th, 7pm to 9pm at the Victoria Hall Methodist Church. If you're interested in classes, the crash course workshops would be an excellent taster to decide whether our teaching style is right for you. On our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/chocochiplanguages you can read a newspaper review of our last workshop in the news clippings album, that should give you a taste of what a Chocochip workshop is like. To sign up, just email ameliacook.jp@gmail.com or call/text Amelia on 07580 637391 and give your full name, email address and mobile phone number. Spaces are limited, so please secure your place as soon as possible!

"Very good workshop. Amelia covered essential things you can't always find in coursebooks in an effective way. You could tell that everything was well thought out." - Robrecht, workshop attendee, Saturday 2nd April 2011. I'm a Sheffield graduate who has started up a Japanese teaching service, beginning with evening classes from October 2010 and now offering cut-price workshops in April! The first workshop was last Saturday and it was a big success, with positive feedback from all attendees and the majority signing up for a course of evening classes starting from May 12th Our next workshop will focus on Japanese writing, often the most challenging obstacle for Japanese learners. Over the three-hour workshop we will explain how Japanese and Chinese characters fit together in Japanese sentences and cover every character in Japan's two alphabets, hiragana and katakana. It is suitable for anyone who understands more or less how Japanese sounds or formed (i.e. the first paragraph on this page) and either has no experience writing Japanese or would like to refresh or reinforce their knowledge. It will give anyone a strong foundation that will be useful if you're taking evening classes, self-studying, or reading signs and menus in Japan. DATE: Saturday April 9th 2011 TIME: 9.30am to 12.30pm PLACE: St Matthews Church, 45 Carver Street (just off Division Street in Sheffield city centre) COVERING: An introduction to Japanese writing, understanding the balance of Japanese and Chinese characters and going through every character of both alphabets! EXTRAS: For this workshop I will also be throwing in free Japanese refreshments, invite native speakers to answer your questions, and offer a 25% discount off a course of 10 lessons! PRICE: Usually £30, this workshop will cost just £20! HOW TO BOOK: Just PM me here or email me at ameliacook.jp@gmail.com. Give me your full name, email address and mobile number and I will send you an email confirming your place on the workshop.

I'm actually reducing this cost even further to bring it in line with another discount I've offered elsewhere, so the cost of this workshop is now just £20! The details of this workshop are now fixed as follows: DATE: Saturday April 2nd 2011 TIME: 9.30am to 12.30pm PLACE: St Matthews Church, 45 Carver Street (just off Division Street in Sheffield city centre) COVERING: An introduction to practical Japanese, focusing on self-introduction, small talk skills and essential vocabulary EXTRAS: For this workshop I will also be throwing in free Japanese refreshments, invite native speakers to answer your questions, and offer a 25% discount off a course of 10 lessons! PRICE: Usually £30, this workshop will cost just £20! HOW TO BOOK: Just email me at ameliacook.jp@gmail.com. Give me your full name, email address and mobile number and I will send you an email confirming your place on the workshop. Please feel free to text/call me on 07580 637391 if you have any questions or concerns, or to book your place. Only 5 days to go and spaces are limited, so contact me now to secure your place!

I'm glad you're interested in my course, just email me at ameliacook.jp@gmail.com and I'll be happy to send you more details and book you a place. Also, give me some information on the kind of club you'd like to start or to participate in and I'll pass the information on to my students. : )

I'm running a Japanese language workshop in the city centre on Saturday morning, April 2nd. It's designed for 1) absolute beginners who have never so much as eaten sushi, and 2) people who have learned little bits or taken classes in the past but would like to refresh or reinforce their knowledge.The workshop will start with the absolute basics and we will pick up the pace quickly as you gain confidence. The aim of the workshop is to give all attendees a solid foundation in useful, practical Japanese, making it easier for you to take it up in the future. If you enjoy this taste of the language, I will be starting a new evening class for which workshop attendees will receive a 25% discount. The cost of this will usually be £30, but I'm offering a special introductory price of just £24! Spaces are limited and many are already reserved, so please book your place by PM, by emailing ameliacook.jp@gmail.com or calling/texting 07580 637391 as soon as possible. Amelia

Junktastic: I'm offering Japanese lessons to fans of Japanese culture, who will be more forgiving than most for the opportunity to study something so few of them have access to that many are so enthusiastic about. If these eyecatching and professional flyers do undermine my offer for the sake of a single sentence on one side (that contains event names, NOT specific dates), then at the very least they'll recognise my branding when they see flyers from the next batch I print, which will have a more generic message. I'd appreciate you not suggesting that I didn't work hard enough handing them out though. I'm learning through trial and error, not failing through laziness. Anywebsite, I agree - I want to use them up as quickly as possible, preferably while it's still March. I'm definitely going to ask some local sushi restaurants and such this weekend, as well as shops selling anime, manga etc. The text from my flyer: "1. Simpler pronunciation. Can you say samurai? Tsunami? Ramen? All Japanese words are that user-friendly. 2. Japanese loanwords. Take the shinkansen to Tokyo, eat sushi, drink sake, try some karaoke... You already know more Japanese than you realise. 3. English loanwords. Visit a 'kafe' (cafe), enjoy a 'sandoitchi' (sandwich) for 'ranchi' (lunch)... Guessing new words is a piece of 'ke-ki.' 4. Simpler nouns. No masculine or feminine, no 'the' or 'a' and hardly any plurals. Japanese minimalism at its best. 5. Simpler verbs. Almost all Japanese verbs play by clear rules. No surprises, and not even a future tense. 6. Simpler motivation! Generally speaking, most people learn Japanese because they've fallen in love with the culture. Most people learn French because they have a GCSE to face." I dropped out of AS level French twice though, once after living in Paris for six months, then went on to get a degree in Japanese Studies, so maybe I'm biased. That said, at the event I attended on Sunday a French teacher read this and said she was "definitely not happy..." as she reluctantly agreed with all these points. She also said that she was just pleased at the idea of young people being enthusiastic about any language though, even if it wasn't hers!

Did you get enough of a response to start anything up? I think some of my students might be interested! Amelia