Let me tell you why I want to learn Japanese:

First of all, I want to let you know that I am deaf.

I have been learning Japanese since 2003 in an university. Took few Japanese classes (and other one in different college). That university has wonderful services for deaf people, which they were able to find people who know Japanese and use them as a captioner in class. All they do is sit next to me and I read on their laptop screen being typed in either English or Japanese text whatever the teacher says.

Originally, I wanted to learn Japanese because I fell in love with mangas and animes, and maybe, find a Japanese girl (like many other students in my classes). But this isn’t the case anymore.

This all changed when I first visited Japan few years later. I knew a deaf high school teacher who regularly goes to Japan every year vounteering to teach American Sign Language and English to deaf people in Japan at various age (from middle school to senior citizens). So I asked him if it is possible for me to volunteer too. He gave me a contact info to one of his good friends in Japan, and bam, I got a reply from that Japanese friend of his (and soon became a good friend of mine) saying he can help me with that.

You cannot imagine how excited I was to be able to travel to Japan for the first time in my life. It took me few months to save up (for flight, food, and transportation). I was provided a place to stay with a host mother for a month who is also deaf.

When I first met my host mother, she knew nothing of English language or American Sign Language. Only Japanese and the Japanese Sign Language. JSL is completely different from ASL and it took us 2-3 weeks to finally communicate each other. Also, she was a very good cook, cooked all sorts of traditional Japanese food such as okonomiyaki, sushi, rice bowls, and soups.

I also did a lot of volunteer work, teaching or giving presentations to deaf middle schoolers, high schoolers and adults in night classes. It allowed me to socialize with them (and I learned a TON of stuff from them). My favorite times were the deaf adults and I going out and have beer after the classes! It was the best experience in my life.

Now, I already went to Japan for 4th time and I still want to go back there. My goal is to, maybe live and work in Japan. I heard from my Japanese friend saying there are openings for disabled people who has experience with drafting. I have two years experience of that, but the problem is my Japanese language skill is still a beginner. I’m here only to learn how to read and write. Once I am comfortable with that, it would be much, much easier for me to learn more Japanese Sign Language because I can just spell a Japanese word in JSL and they will show me how to sign it in JSL. And I can still learn more Japanese through JSL too. What I need is a big jump start with the Japanese language until I become comfortable with it.

And that’s the reason why I want to try learning Japanese here.