Why I'm Studying Japanese

I've wanted to study Japanese for years now. I learned hiragana in seventh grade because I thought it was interesting. I love that Japanese is new. In high school, I studied French and, because I spoke another Romance language, most of it made sense. That sort of connection does not happen for me in Japanese. 

I wanted to learn the language initially because I am interested in Japanese culture and history. I love Japanese food—I spent the summer working at an udon shop in Boston. These are still my reasons for learning, but what keeps me motivated are the challenges. Learning Japanese has taught me to put in much more effort than I am used to in learning languages, and it feels very rewarding. 

The udon shop I worked at is called 夢があるから, which is what I titled this blog. I learned a lot about Japanese cooking, but a lot more about life. The concept of dreams is a big focus of the shop, and they pushed me a lot to make everything I do meaningful. I realized that my dream is to travel the world and work in bakeries and one day have my own, and I would like to work in Japan, so learning the language is in pursuit of that goal. At Columbia, I want to study East Asian history and study abroad in Japan, so learning Japanese is very connected to my goals.

Most concretely, I've found it challenging to say the time. It just takes me a while, so walking around I will periodically check my watch and think the time to myself in Japanese. But overall, my challenge has been with accepting that I need to put in effort in order to learn; I can't pick up the vocabulary just by reading through a list on the way to class. It can be frustrating to struggle to say sentences in class. A lot of learning a language makes me feel like a small child again, which is odd and unpleasant as a college student. But that is how we learn languages, it's just that when we are very young we don't feel ashamed to try speaking even if we mess up, or to write things wrong. So I will accept that learning Japanese will be a process that requires commitment, focus, and drive, but mostly the ability to learn from my mistakes.