This past year saw an end to the Well Said column, which ran weekly in The Japan Times since 1995. Akemi Tanahashi began it with co-writer Yayoi Oshima, who eventually left and was replaced with Hitomi Tashiro.

The column featured a diverse cast of characters whose antics were used to teach grammar points to Japan Times readers and, since those lessons are evergreen, you can still access them via The Japan Times’ website.

Tanahashi is currently working for Human Academy in Tokyo, training Japanese-language teachers, while Tashiro teaches Japanese at Meiji University and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. With this interview, we wanted to give them a final お疲れ様 (otsukaresama, good job) and ありがとうございました (arigatō gozaimashita, thank you very much) for their many years of great lessons.