indessed roscivs

Tonight was the first class of Japanese II! We reviewed places and learned a few new place-words, and learned the colors. (We also made origami hearts for Valentine’s day. Awww!)

Many people ask me why I wanted to learn Japanese. Well, first of all I love languages—I think they’re fun to learn, and they stretch my brain in all sorts of interesting ways. I love all the intricate nuances of grammar, too—the grammar of a language is like a twisty maze, similar to mazes I’ve done before, but different in new and strange ways, like a puzzle that I have to solve. I want to learn Russian in particular because of its complex grammar—it’s one of the few living languages with a complex case system. (Classical Greek and Latin are dead; written Arabic has some remnants of a case system but nothing complicated.)

The real reason I picked Japanese as the next language to learn, though, is because I strongly feel that, after a year or so of studying a language, pretty much the only way you can significantly improve is to actually travel to where the language is spoken and use it on a day-to-day basis. Well, I studied Arabic last—and unfortunately, the situation in the world is not such that it’s a good idea for an American to travel to most Arabic-speaking countries. (Furthermore, spoken Arabic differs greatly from country to country, and I learned the Egyptian variety.) Even if I got a Canadian passport (which I plan on getting), I still don’t think it would be that great of an idea. Uncle Sam wanted to get DW to go to the Middle East and speak Arabic for the government to the tune of $300k. It wasn’t worth it.

So I tried to think of what language is both interesting, and is spoken in a country that’s safe to travel to. Japanese was a perfect fit. And now, 私は日本語の学生です!

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