Ryohei Suzuki

Suzuki became interested in learning English after a visit to an uncle, who was living in Los Angeles when he was in Elementary school. He and his brother went to the YMCA when he was in elementary school. While in the third year of junior high school, he participated in a YMCA program in Nishinomiya City. Words from a teacher in the YMCA remained in him, motivating him to study hard, taking his English classes seriously. While in the second and third years of junior high school, he did short-term homestays (one to two week periods) in the United States and Australia. He then went to study abroad for one year, to rural Oklahoma, United States, while he was in high school. According to a comment on a TV program, Suzuki's reason to go abroad to study, was his first love. He graduated from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies with a Bachelor's degree in English Studies in March 2006. He also became interested in German, after "falling in love with a German girl", as he said in a program. He won Dokkyo University's National High School German Speech Contest in 2000. When he was a student, he worked part-time in NHK.