I originally wanted to learn Japanese at a very young age. My town has a sister city in Japan and ever since I heard about that, I was interested in the country, then the culture, then the language.

Also at a very young age, I wasn’t encouraged to continue learning, so I gathered as much as I could and stagnated. Only my parents remember when I was fluent. I plan to regain it all, and someday use it for a plethora of things in my life. My main motivation is to become immersed in the culture, which I feel I cannot do without the language. The shows, the books, the flow of communication in general interests me so so much on a greatly personal level. I may become a translator of some variety someday, but we’ll see. I need to think about how much of the future will be incorporating my love of the language.