Why I'm Taking Japanese

I don’t remember the first time I became interested in studying Japanese. At the beginning of high school, a friend of mine started taking the language. (Later she and her sister could both speak enough Japanese to chat whit me sitting by, confused by their chatter.) My school only offered Spanish, Latin, and French. Having taken two years of Spanish in middle school, I headed down that path and along the way picked up Latin in order to learn grammar and language structure. Then my boyfriend also started Japanese when he went to college. By that point, I had been training in Aikido for two years, which sparked an interested in traditional Japanese and Shinto culture. I wanted to understand budo in context, understand the words that I use when training—aiki, takemusu aikido, masaka agastsu, kokyu, even onagaishimasu. I have long wanted to go to Japan, more recently to study Aikido. I’m also fascinated by the non-Romance-language aspect of Japanese. I was so steeped in Spanish and Latin in high school; I’m excited about something new.