I started studying Japanese for my own growth

When I went to Canada, I didn’t have money and couldn’t speak the language. This acted as a trigger and opened my eyes to various things, such as how I need to take studying seriously. It also made me realize I need to think about my career as well. I was a business major, but with all the people graduating around me, I wanted to differentiate myself. I could already speak two languages, but I thought it would be impressive if I could speak three.

I considered studying Japanese because at the time, I was interested in Japanese subculture such as animation, music, and manga. But that wasn’t my main reason. Having started studying English from practically nothing, I still managed to clear the intensive course in one year. I was impressed with my own growth, and thought it would be great if I could replicate that. And if I was going to start another language, I thought that choosing a more difficult language that I was also interested in culturally would be a good choice, leading me to Japanese. But I also knew it wouldn’t be any good if I didn’t take it seriously, and because there aren’t many jobs in Canada that use Japanese, there was a risk that it would just end up as a hobby language. So I knew that if I wanted to actually use the language, I’d have to go to Japan.