Meet 8-week (returning) School of Japanese Immersion Student: Zachary Brothers
Thanks to our 24/7 immersion environment, returning School of Japanese immersion student Zachary Brothers was able to make incredible progress and gain a thorough understanding of Japanese that he had previously been unable to achieve in his prior study of the language.
Zachary Brothers
Hometown: Wyckoff, New Jersey
Program: 8-week Immersion
Current: Indian Hills High School
What surprised you about your experience at the Middlebury Language Schools?
During the program, its remarkable how quickly I felt like I was learning.
In high school, I would study the same language for multiple years and still stumble through every oral exam, but because immersion requires you to exercise the speaking part of your brain so often, you can make incredible progress and gain a thorough understanding that you can’t get from just a textbook.
Why did you choose to study at the Middlebury Language Schools?
The deciding factors that led me to choose Middlebury over another program were the Language Pledge® and the campus. When learning a language, its important to make sure that you’re able to use it effectively and in the right situations, which the pledge forces you to do every day. Also, after spending my whole life living in the more urban parts of Northern New Jersey, the much more rural area was a nice change of scenery that I hadn’t experienced before.
How much did your Japanese improve?
Going into the program, I had a decent grasp on the hiragana, passing knowledge of the katakana, and fewer than ten kanji memorized.
I was able to leave the program having memorized both the hiragana and katakana and being able to use the 100+ kanji we learned.
What advice would you give someone wanting to attend the School of Japanese?
The best advice I can give to people joining the program is to try to reach out to as many people as possible from the different levels. Talking to people who know more about the language than you do is a surefire way to learn the language. After all, no matter where you’re from, that’s how you learned your native language. As a bonus, you can always stay in contact with your friends after the program ends.
Connect with Zachary and our other ambassadors here.
Applications open November 1, 2025 for the Summer 2026 session of both our immersion and graduate programs at the School of Japanese.
You can gather your application materials ahead of time here.
