Why I wanted to study Japanese

     When studying the more commonly taught languages in school I always found myself becoming annoyed with the way in which they were structured (masculine/feminine, too many verb conjugations, etc).  I studied French in middle school and although I found the culture interesting the language was not something that I particularly enjoyed learning.

    I have always been interested in Japanese culture by way of playing Japanese video games as a child.  Once I found out the majority of the games I had grown to like were all made by companies headquartered in Japan, I became interested in learning the language.  I then switched from taking French classes to Japanese classes in high school and found that the language itself made a lot more sense to me.  There were no more masculine and feminine particles as well and I was very pleased with this.

     I have continued to study Japanese because I feel when it comes to science and technology Japan is most definitely one of the forerunners.  I completed a project on robotics in high school and was surprised that yet again most of the companies who were on the forefront of robotics development were Japanese companies.

      As someone who is going to go into science and is very interested in biomedical engineering, I thought that keeping with Japanese was the best option for me as Japan will most likely continue to be on top in all things science and technology and I would perhaps like to do research at an institution in Japan.  I also would like to get fluent enough that I can play video games in Japanese, as the voice actors are always far more talented.

   I haven't taken Japanese in about three years but have found that through being exposed to it in class I am remembering some of what I had forgotten.  I think traveling to Japan sometime in the near future would be beneficial for me to keep up with it and remember things that I learn in class.