First time I heard Japanese was through anime.

Growing up as a child, watching television was the

reward of going to school during weekdays and finishing household chores on the weekends. It was
2004 and we didn't have cable or internet at the time, just a CD/DVD player and a CRT television set. I
would normally just swap out CDs of western cartoon shows like Spongebob, Tom & Jerry and a few
Disney movies. I managed to get my hands on a DVD copy of Trigun. The title and the illustration of the
main protagonist; the deadly desperado “Vash the Stampede” has caught my 8-year old eyes with glee
and excitement. The intro played and it had something I’ve never seen before in a show: Japanese text
which got me curious as to what those words were and what they meant, it also had an aesthetic
appearance that matched the art style of the show. As the show’s first sequence began, the characters
spoke in Japanese (but with English subtitles) and it felt like a different world waiting to explore. I got
hooked on watching anime and explored other titles like Hunter x Hunter, Ghost Fighter, and One Piece
etc. I watch anime up to this very day. While these shows had the option of English dubbing, watching
the original versions in Japanese just gave it the feeling of being authentic. At times, the English subtitles
were off, some words in English just didn’t feel right. Which gave me my first motivation in studying
Japanese: to truly understand what it all means.

Fast forward to today, I found that studying Japanese is also a gateway that can lead to many
opportunities.

An opportunity to discover and adapt to a whole new culture. Knowing how to speak Japanese will make
learning Japanese culture and navigating through the country easier. I can read different signs and know
what they actually mean. I can stop and ask for directions when I get lost. I can learn the dos or don’ts so
I won’t break any rules or laws. I can express my thoughts more clearly when communicating and I can
learn more when being taught about different behaviors and attitudes.

An opportunity to meeting new people. Knowing a local language when travelling to another country
will allow me to better understand the people. It can help me interact with them, gain their perspective
about my country, and share my perspectives with them as well. It can help me make new friends, and
also improve my fluency in Japanese when speaking with them.

An opportunity to become multilingual. I understand that learning Japanese will take patience,
discipline, and time to fully absorb. The experience I gain during the process will become very useful to
me when tackling other foreign languages as well.

An opportunity to work and live in Japan. Japan is known for its economic growth, industrious people,
and innovative technologies. Having the fifth largest economy Japan has one of the most developed
economies in the world today. Knowing how to speak Japanese can open up a lot of career
opportunities in Japan, and getting hired in a company for long term employment. And lastly, studying
Japanese is worth the effort that as it can help me discover how it can change my life forever.