Square One

When I first came to Princeton a year ago, I had wanted to take a foreign language. I had already placed out of the language requirement with Chinese, but had wanted to pursue other languages. My schedule opened up this year, which brings us to the question of why I chose Japanese.

There are a plethora of reasons - one, in my friend group back home in North Carolina, we had decided to learn the three major Asian languages. Some of us were fluent in Chinese, and some others in Korean, so the obvious option was to take Japanese.

Another was the fact that Japanese incorporated Chinese characters, which I am already familiar with. In addition, learning Japanese opens up the world of J-pop, Japanese drama and anime much more than in the past, all of which I have experienced throughout my life.

I'm excited about learning to understand the language - especially the interaction between Hiragana, Kanji, and Katakana. I find the most challenging part to be pronunciation, as it is not similar to either Chinese or English.

I'm looking to spending the next year learning Japanese!