Why I'm learning Japanese

I added First Year Japanese as my "fun" class senior year because I love learning new languages. I stayed in the class because I loved the fast pace of the class and the language itself. At Columbia I've studied Arabic and Spanish, and I'm fluent in Chinese, so I look forward to having the ability to communicate with even more people in the world after a year of Japanese. I like to travel, and there's nothing better than going to a place and being able to engage with local people in their native language (or at least respectfully try). On top of that, an intro language class is a fantastic change of pace to the usual lecture or seminar, as I enjoy learning something completely new and very practical every day.

I think language is the best way to understand a culture, and Japan has an incredibly rich cultural and linguistic tradition. I look forward to traveling to Japan again and knowing some basic Japanese next time!