Willingness to perform, fun, curiosity, perseverance and a good network – with these ingredients Tommy Nyholm prepares a wonderful learning menu! However as a trained cook it is not only important to have the best ingredients, you must also create something beautiful and special with them. Therefore you need freedom. And so you do for learning. Tommy, who calls himself a wacky, spontaneous and gentle giant, had it.

Since Japanese was not on the curriculum he had to and was allowed to find his own way of learning this language.

So far learning languages had been a dry and boring looking into books and learning grammar for him. However he wanted to have fun while learning. Exactly how he did when teaching himself calligraphy, cooking and drawing he was going to learn Japanese.

He is very fond of animes. So he started to watch dozens of such movies, wrote down important things and deepened them with books and apps. He soon found friends who recommended him good animes. In the meantime he has watched over 500 (!!), 50 are on his favourites list. And what’s more, he started to work in a restaurant where there were Japanese people, too. He made friends with them and kept speaking with them. Seizing opportunities it also one of Tommy’s competencies.

He is passionate about the things he is doing.

Only having finished a really good anime leaves a kind of emptiness within him. But it doesn’t last long, thanks to the big choice of animes…

And what’s on the menu now? A visit to Japan, where he would like to learn EVERYTHING this country has to offer. And if possible he would like to work as an English teacher at a Japanese high school. Will he leave as much freedom, as he had to his students, too? I do hope so, for him but especially for his students!