Policies

1Payment and Pricing

All lessons are prepaid on a monthly basis and calculated from a standard rate of $60.00 per hour.

• Process: I will send the payment details via Wise around the 15th of the previous month. When available, I may send my Wise invitation link. Wise may provide a referral benefit to one or both parties under its own current terms; any such benefit is optional, is not guaranteed, and does not change the lesson fee or affect whether an application is accepted. A student may use Wise without the invitation link where Wise permits.
• Payment Deadline: Please complete your payment by 23:59 JST, two days before your first lesson of each month.
• Refund Policy: Fees paid are generally non-refundable, except where required by applicable law or where the lesson cannot be provided due to the tutor's circumstances. This includes mid-month absences, skipping sessions, plan changes, or mid-month termination.
• 5-Week Months: In months with five weekly sessions, the fee is calculated using the same $60.00/hour base rate to reflect the additional lesson time.
• Pricing Basis: Current lesson fees are based on a standard rate of $60.00/hour, prorated by lesson length. Any future rate change will be announced to enrolled students at least one month in advance.

Plan	Lesson Time	Fee (4 weeks)	Fee (5 weeks)
Basic	1h × 4 (or 5)	$240.00	$300.00
Basic Plus	1h 10m × 4 (or 5)	$280.00	$350.00
Double	2h × 4 (or 5)	$480.00	$600.00
Double Plus	2h 10m × 4 (or 5)	$520.00	$650.00

1-A. Initial Booking (New Students Only)

• Tentative Booking: For the first month only, your preferred slot is held temporarily until payment is confirmed.
• Slot Release: If the first payment is not received by the deadline, the tentative booking is automatically canceled.

1-B. Continuing Students and Late Payment

• Ongoing Arrangement: For continuing students, lessons are arranged on an ongoing monthly basis unless a pause or termination is requested by 23:59 JST on the 15th of the previous month.
• Reserved Slot: After this deadline, your lesson slot for the following month is reserved exclusively for you. Because that slot may not be refillable on short notice, the monthly fee for the reserved slot will be charged even if lessons are not taken or payment is delayed.
• Suspension: Lessons will be suspended until payment is confirmed.

1-C. Changing Your Plan

• Upgrading (e.g., 1h → 2h): Please consult me at any time if you wish to increase your lesson hours.
• Downgrading (e.g., 2h → 1h): Please consult me by the 16th of the previous month. For temporary changes, I strive to be as flexible as possible based on your situation, so please discuss it with me. However, please understand that adjustments may not always be possible depending on the circumstances.

2Rescheduling and Cancellations (Student-side)

All deadlines are based on Japan Standard Time (JST). All rescheduling is subject to teacher availability.

My regular business hours are 10:00–17:00 JST from April to October and 11:00–18:00 JST from November to March. Depending on the situation, a small amount of flexibility may sometimes be possible.

For students in countries that observe daylight saving time, I discuss seasonal time changes directly with each student. The reference here is seasonal scheduling around the March and November switching period, not weekly time changes.

A. Notice of 7 Days or More

• Reschedule: Free of charge.
• Combining Sessions: You may combine sessions into a single back-to-back slot within the same month.

B. Short Notice (6 Days to 24 Hours)

• Reschedule: The originally reserved lesson time may be treated as used. A replacement session may be offered subject to availability and an additional fee equal to 50% of the scheduled lesson value (for example, $30 for a 60-minute lesson or $60 for a 2-hour lesson), where applicable and to the extent permitted by applicable law.
• Absence: The lesson is treated as consumed.

C. Same-Day (Less than 24 Hours)

• Reschedule: The originally reserved lesson time may be treated as used. A replacement session may be offered subject to availability and an additional fee equal to 100% of the scheduled lesson value (for example, $60 for a 60-minute lesson or $120 for a 2-hour lesson), where applicable and to the extent permitted by applicable law.
• Absence: The lesson is treated as consumed.

3Tutor-side Changes (Compensation)

I strive to inform you at least one week in advance. For unexpected reasons (health, family emergencies, etc.):

• 6 days to 24 hours notice: I will add +30 minutes total to future lessons.
• Less than 24 hours notice: I will add +60 minutes total to future lessons.
• Credit Carry-over: If a makeup session is not possible within the current month, the lesson fee will be carried over as a credit to the following month.
• Nothing in this policy limits any rights that may apply under applicable law.

4Taking a Break and Termination

"Taking a Break" (stopping payment) is only applicable when you need to take one full month or more off.
*For absences shorter than one month, please use rescheduling or make-up lessons instead.

• Deadline for Consultation: Whether choosing A or B, please contact me by 23:59 JST on the 15th of the previous month.
• Late Applications: Applications submitted after the deadline will be processed as Option B (billed as usual), as the slot has already been reserved for you.

5Minor Lateness

• Student is late: The end time stays the same (e.g., 11:05–12:00).
• Tutor is late: I will provide the full scheduled total time (e.g., 11:05–12:05).

6Intellectual Property and Copyright

• Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or public posting of any lesson materials or resources provided is strictly prohibited.
• Separate audio recording, video recording, screen recording, or recording through an external app, device, or service requires my prior express permission. Any permitted recording is limited to the agreed personal-review purpose and may not be reproduced, distributed, or posted publicly. See Section 14 for built-in text-based Google Meet features and the full recording rules.

7Termination of Agreement and Right of Refusal

• I reserve the right to terminate the service or refuse lessons to students due to unpaid balances, repetitive payment delays, bad faith, harassment, or unauthorized use of materials. Once the agreement is terminated, all future lesson provision and communication will cease immediately.

8Technical Issues

• Tutor-side: If the lesson is significantly interrupted due to teacher-side connection or equipment issues, the lost time will be compensated for in future sessions.
• Student-side: Any interruptions due to student-side connection, equipment, or software issues will be the student's responsibility. The end time will remain as scheduled, and no makeup time or refund will be provided.
• Nothing in this policy limits any rights that may apply under applicable law.

9Student Community (Group Chat)

• Content: I share Japanese learning tips, culture, and glimpses of my daily life in Japan. It is a casual place for students to connect.
• During Breaks: You are welcome to stay in the group even while taking a formal break (Option A). You do not need to leave.
• Expulsion: However, in the rare event of termination due to policy violations (Section 7), you will be required to leave the group immediately.

10Lesson Applications: Age and Legal Capacity

The following are Junichiro Japanese's minimum safeguarding rules for lesson applications. They do not declare a student's legal status under the law of any particular country or region.

• Students aged 15 or younger: Applications are not currently accepted.
• Students aged 16 or 17: The student may submit only a preliminary inquiry through the official website form using the student's own personal email. The student's receipt then provides a private link for entering a different parent or legal guardian email. The guardian receives the policies and a separate private page where they may agree or decline before the application can be reviewed further. The guardian form is not permanently displayed on the public site. Applications remain case-by-case even if a different age rule may exist where the student lives.
• Students aged 18 or older: Students may generally submit their own inquiry. However, reaching age 18 does not necessarily establish independent contractual capacity under every law that may apply.

Review Before Booking or Payment

After receiving the student's age, current country and general region of residence, and other relevant information, I may review official public information and, where reasonably necessary, seek professional advice to assess whether additional parent or legal guardian involvement is required under this safeguarding policy or legal requirements that may apply.

This review is only for lesson eligibility, safeguarding, and administration. It is not a binding legal determination of the student's status or capacity, and it does not mean that I choose which country's law applies.

If independent contractual capacity is unclear, I may request limited additional information, require the private email-based guardian-confirmation process, pause the application, or decline it. No acceptance, lesson agreement, booking confirmation, invoice, or payment will be accepted until every required guardian-confirmation and eligibility-review step is complete.

Student and Guardian Steps

For a student aged 16 or 17, the process is:

• The student submits a preliminary inquiry through the public website form using the student's own personal email.
• The student receives a private, time-limited link and uses it to enter a different parent or legal guardian email. The student link should not be forwarded.
• The parent or legal guardian receives the policies and a separate private, time-limited agree-or-decline page at the guardian email.
• To agree, the guardian enters the student's exact age, their own name and relationship, reviews the current policies and privacy notice, accepts the required declarations and future agreement and payment responsibility, and submits Agree. The guardian may instead submit Decline without completing the agreement fields. Merely opening the link records neither choice.

Guardian email confirmation shows access to the submitted guardian mailbox; it does not by itself prove parent or legal guardian status. A short online meeting or limited additional information may be required before the application is accepted.

Agreement and Future Payment Responsibility

If parent or legal guardian involvement is required, the guardian must be responsible for entering or expressly approving the lesson agreement and arranging the future payment. The private guardian decision page records an acknowledgement of that future responsibility, but the page itself is not a booking, invoice, current payment authorization, or final lesson agreement.

If the application can proceed, the specific lesson plan, recurring schedule, fees, payment deadline, and proposed start date will be presented before payment or booking confirmation. The inquiry records policy agreement and Notion AI consent; any required guardian approval remains a separate safeguard.

A booking request, agreement, or payment made alone by a person who is not legally able to complete it independently will not be accepted.

Providing the requested information does not guarantee acceptance. I reserve the right to decline an application based on the student's age, location, schedule, payment arrangements, safety considerations, communication arrangements, or individual circumstances.

11Privacy for Age and Capacity Reviews

For applications involving a student aged 16 or 17, or another applicant whose independent contractual capacity or need for parent or legal guardian involvement must be reviewed, I request only the information reasonably necessary to assess lesson eligibility, complete the safeguarding review, arrange scheduling, communicate with the appropriate person, manage the lesson agreement, and arrange payments.

This information may include:

• the inquiry reference, student's age or age group, student name, and student email;
• current country and general region of residence and time zone;
• the parent or legal guardian's name, separate email address, and declared relationship to the student;
• the declarations and acknowledgements submitted, the relevant policy and privacy-notice versions, consent and confirmation timestamps, status, and email-delivery records;
• a one-time confirmation-token hash and expiry used to confirm the guardian mailbox; and
• limited additional information reasonably needed to determine whether parent or legal guardian involvement is required.

The private student and guardian links contain opaque one-time tokens and do not include the student or guardian name or email. Raw tokens are not kept in the Google Sheet. An exact residential address, identification document, payment-card information, password, or medical record is not normally required during the inquiry or guardian-confirmation steps. If additional information later becomes reasonably necessary, I will explain what is needed and why before requesting it.

12Inquiry Privacy and Records

This section explains how information submitted through the public website lesson inquiry form and the private email-based guardian pages is handled. Please do not send an exact home address, identification document, password, payment-card information, medical record, or other unnecessary sensitive information during an inquiry.

A. Information Collected

An inquiry may include the student's or applicant's name, email address, age group, country and general region of residence, time zone, Japanese level, learning goals, preferred plan, possible recurring weekday lesson times, additional notes, contact history, age and capacity review acknowledgement, and inquiry privacy-notice version. For a student aged 16 or 17, the separate guardian record also includes the linked inquiry reference, exact student age, same student email, different guardian email, guardian name and relationship, declarations, policy and privacy-notice version, consent and confirmation timestamps, status, delivery records, and limited security records.

B. Purposes

• to reply to your inquiry and assess lesson availability and suitability;
• to assess whether parent or legal guardian involvement or another age-related safeguard is required before booking or payment;
• to suggest a plan and recurring schedule, arrange Google Meet access, and administer lessons;
• to send receipts, guardian-mailbox confirmation messages, review updates, and later lesson administration messages by email or another channel agreed after the official application;
• to keep reasonable records of the inquiry privacy notice acknowledgement, scheduling, payment, and business correspondence; and
• to prevent spam, misuse, disputes, or unlawful activity and comply with legal obligations.

C. Form Delivery and Other Services

The public lesson inquiry form and private guardian pages are processed by a Google Apps Script operated within my Google Workspace account. The inquiry is delivered to my business email, related records are kept in private Google Sheets owned by that account, and receipts, guardian invitations, policy-decision messages, and confirmation messages are sent through Gmail in that account; the forms are not sent through a separate form-delivery company.

The public inquiry form and private email links are the official channels for a new lesson application, age review, guardian confirmation, and booking process. Instagram remains available for public Japanese-learning content and social contact but is not an application, guardian-consent, booking-confirmation, or payment channel. The business email may be used to report a technical problem, make a privacy or accessibility request, send a business message, or ask about an existing website inquiry; it is not an alternative way to bypass the inquiry or guardian-confirmation process.

Google Workspace, Instagram, Wise, and Google Meet are operated by their respective providers and are subject to those providers' terms and privacy practices.

D. Retention and Sharing

Inquiry information is kept only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes above, including follow-up, lesson administration, accounting, safety, and handling possible disputes or legal obligations. Unsuccessful or abandoned inquiries should ordinarily be deleted or anonymized when they are no longer reasonably needed. Information is not sold. It may be disclosed to service providers used to operate the business, to professional advisers, or where disclosure is reasonably necessary or legally required.

E. Choices and Requests

You may ask by email whether I hold your inquiry information and request a reasonable correction or deletion. A request may be limited where retention is necessary for an existing agreement, accounting, fraud prevention, dispute handling, safety, or a legal obligation. Withdrawing an inquiry does not affect processing that already occurred before the request.

F. Inquiry Notice and Later Agreement

The inquiry form records explicit agreement to the whole Lesson & Privacy Policy and separate consent to using Notion AI Meeting Notes during lessons, together with the inquiry ID, policy version, AI notice version, and server-recorded consent timestamps. Submitting this inquiry does not reserve a lesson, guarantee acceptance, or create a payment obligation. Junichiro Japanese is not obligated to accept the inquiry. Your eligibility, schedule, plan, fees, and start date will be confirmed separately. After eligibility and any required guardian review, I will present the plan, schedule, fees, payment deadline, and proposed start date before payment. A routine email reply of “Confirmed” is not required to repeat the same policy consent. If the policy or AI notice version changes before payment or lessons begin, renewed consent to the changed version is required. Past inquiries without explicit consent remain not recorded and require separate confirmation; their old acknowledgements are not treated as new consent.

13Email Learning Plan Privacy and Consent

The Kana Starter Plan is an optional five-email learning sequence sent over seven days. The Free Japanese page remains available without email registration, and registration is not required to ask about or take lessons.

A. Registration Information

Registration collects an email address, student age group, any required parent or legal guardian confirmation, the consent notice version, registration source, consent and confirmation timestamps, delivery progress, unsubscribe status, and limited technical records needed to operate and protect the system. A name is not required.

B. Confirmation and Delivery

No learning sequence begins until the registration address uses the confirmation link sent by email. The confirmation link expires after 48 hours. Confirmed registrations receive messages on approximately days 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7. Delivery timing may vary because Google Apps Script time-driven triggers do not run at an exact minute.

C. Students Under 18

Students aged 15 or younger cannot register. For a student aged 16 or 17, a parent or legal guardian must register their own email address and provide the guardian confirmation shown on the form. The sequence is then delivered to that parent or guardian address.

These email-registration safeguards are separate from the lesson-agreement age and capacity review described in Section 10.

D. Google Workspace Processing

Registration and delivery records are stored in a private Google Sheet owned by my Google Workspace account. Confirmation and learning emails are sent through that account using Google Apps Script and Gmail. The system checks daily sending limits and does not use a separate newsletter or form-delivery provider.

E. Unsubscribe and Retention

Every learning email includes an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing stops future sequence messages. I may retain a limited suppression record so the unsubscribe request continues to be honored, together with records reasonably needed for consent evidence, system security, dispute handling, or legal obligations. Expired, unused, or otherwise unnecessary registration records should be deleted or anonymized when no longer reasonably needed.

F. Use and Sharing

The registration information is used to confirm the request, deliver the Kana Starter Plan, operate and secure the system, respond to email questions, and keep reasonable consent and unsubscribe records. It is not sold. It may be handled by Google as the Workspace provider, disclosed to professional advisers, or disclosed where reasonably necessary or legally required.

G. Requests

You may unsubscribe at any time through an email link or contact me by email to request a reasonable correction or deletion. A deletion request may be limited where a minimal record is necessary to honor an unsubscribe request, prevent misuse, handle a dispute, or comply with a legal obligation.

14Lesson Data, Transcripts and Digital Tools

A. Student and Lesson Information

For enrolled students, I may keep lesson-related information such as contact and scheduling records, learning goals, progress notes, corrections, review points, personalized materials, and lesson transcripts. I use this information only as reasonably necessary to provide and administer lessons, maintain continuity, and improve each student's learning materials and lesson content.

B. Lesson Transcription

My current standard 1-on-1 lesson service uses Notion AI Meeting Notes to transcribe Google Meet lessons. This is Notion's transcription process; it is not Google Meet's own transcription feature. Lesson transcription is a required part of my current standard lesson service rather than an optional add-on.

The use and purposes of transcription are disclosed before a lesson agreement is completed and must be expressly confirmed. Silence, failure to reply, continued attendance without confirmation, or an unchecked box is not treated as confirmation. New students explicitly consent to the use of Notion AI Meeting Notes through a separate required checkbox when submitting their inquiry. This consent does not confirm acceptance or reserve a lesson. Existing students receive a separate notice and are asked for an express written confirmation before the transcription-based lesson format continues. Questions or concerns may be raised before agreement.

C. Why Transcription Is Required

Transcripts help me review what was actually studied, track progress, identify mistakes and weak points, prepare the next lesson, create personalized review sheets and learning materials, improve lesson content, and maintain continuity across lessons. They allow me to do this accurately for each student instead of relying only on memory after the lesson. Transcription is used to support the quality and consistency of personalized teaching, not to disadvantage the student.

D. Notion AI Meeting Notes

Notion AI Meeting Notes temporarily processes meeting audio to create a transcript and related notes. According to Notion's current documentation, live audio from the Notion app or browser is sent to transcription sub-processors for real-time processing, and those sub-processors do not store the audio. A temporary audio copy is created on the device during the session and is normally deleted after successful processing or within 24 hours, whichever occurs first. If real-time processing fails, Notion may upload audio to retry processing and retain that uploaded audio for up to three days. These technical details may change as Notion updates its service.

Before transcription begins, I provide a clear notice and confirm that the participants have agreed to the meeting being recorded and transcribed. I may use Notion's consent message or another clear in-meeting notice for this purpose. Any additional consent or notice required by the platform or applicable law also continues to apply.

E. Use of Transcript Data

Transcripts and related text-based lesson information may be stored and organized in access-restricted Notion pages and used for lesson management, progress tracking, lesson preparation, personalized review sheets, personalized learning materials, and related administration. Only information reasonably relevant to those purposes should be included.

F. Notion, ChatGPT and Other Digital Tools

I may use Notion, ChatGPT, or another necessary digital tool to organize transcript text or other text-based lesson information and to create or improve review materials, lesson plans, and personalized learning materials. I limit the information used to what is reasonably necessary for those purposes. These providers process information under their own terms, privacy practices, security measures, and data-control settings, which may change.

I do not separately upload lesson audio or video files to ChatGPT for additional analysis. The possible use of transcript text is different from sending the lesson audio or video file itself.

G. Audio and Video Retention

I do not separately download or keep continuing copies of lesson audio or video files as part of the standard lesson workflow. Notion's optional Store audio locally setting is not used for this service. The temporary audio processing described in Section 14-D is part of Notion's technical transcription process and is different from optional local audio storage or a separate recording archive.

H. Student Use of Google Meet Features

Students may use Google Meet's built-in text-based learning and accessibility features, such as live captions, Transcribe, or Take notes for me, for personal learning when those features are available to them and permitted by Google Meet's current host, administrator, account, and consent controls. Separate permission from me is not required for that permitted text-based use. Any Google notice, participant notification, sharing setting, or in-product consent step still applies.

I. Student Recording Rules

Separate audio recording, video recording, screen recording of the lesson, or recording through an external app, software, or device requires my prior express permission. This rule protects both parties' privacy as well as original materials, lesson content, explanations, teaching methods, and other intellectual property. Permission for a specific personal-review recording does not authorize sharing, distribution, public posting, advertising use, or any other purpose. This rule does not prohibit the permitted personal use of the built-in text-based features described in Section 14-H.

J. Privacy, Access and Public Use

Personal lesson information, transcripts, and learning records are used only for lesson delivery, lesson management, progress tracking, lesson preparation, personalized review materials, personalized learning materials, and related administrative purposes. They are not used for ordinary social-media posts, public content, or advertising. Access is limited to me and the service providers reasonably needed for these purposes, subject to their own controls and terms. Information may also be disclosed to professional advisers or where disclosure is reasonably necessary or legally required.

Lesson information is kept only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes above, including lesson continuity, administration, dispute handling, and legal obligations. A student may ask about the lesson information I hold and request a reasonable correction or deletion, although a request may be limited where retention is still reasonably necessary. Where parent or legal guardian involvement is required, the relevant guardian acknowledgement must also be completed before the application proceeds.

Seller Information / 特定商取引法に基づく表記

Private lessons are provided by Junichiro Japanese (sole proprietor). The business address is shown below.

Legal Name and Telephone Number

The service provider's legal name and telephone number will be provided without undue delay by email upon request, before any lesson application or payment is made.

To request this information, please email [email protected].

氏名・電話番号

表示を省略している氏名・電話番号は、ご請求があれば、お申込み・お支払いの意思決定に先立って遅滞なく電子メールで提供いたします。ご請求は [email protected] までお送りください。

The AI learning app is a separate subscription sold through Paddle. See the app's Legal notice.