HEY GUYS!
My name is Loretta and welcome to my channel!
I couldn't make up my mind before
because I want to have a very honest chat
so it'd be more appropriate
if I spoke in English
But today I want to talk about
WHY I speak Japanese
and why I still speak it today.
However, I want this to be a real example.
I want to tell you what brought me here
and actually SHOW you the result of my experiences
so there will be English captions
but today I'm doing this one all in Japanese.
So, let me reintroduce myself,
My name is Loretta
And I come from a place on the east coast of the U.S.A
from the northern part of a state called Virginia.
I live in Japan now but I am 100% American born and raised.
Recently I was on twitter
and heard that in the city right next to
Fairfax Public Schools where I went,
it seems Arlington Public Schools
has being seeing some extra buzz.
The schools there teach many languages
but Japanese is also one of them
but I heard that as soon as the current students graduate
they plan to begin phasing out Japanese from the curriculum.
It turns out a lot of different people are opposed to this
so they started a petition on Change.org to raise awareness
I immediately signed and shared it on Twitter
but then I thought to myself,
Why am I, a 100% non-Japanese person concerned with
whether or not they teach Japanese?
So I started reflecting on when I started Japanese
and figured I should be more clear about it
here on YouTube as well.
I mean, in my case it's Japanese
but I know a lot of you aren't necessarily trying to learn it.
More so than that, just learning any language
or culture that's different from what you knew growing up.
Is something that I want to talk about now.
So even now people ask me why I can speak Japanese
there are many reasons,
like having a Japanese friend
or even Anime and other pop culture
but the reason I actually can speak Japanese
is because I was taught formally since my 1st year of High School.
If you map it out on a timeline,
My first Japanese courses began at age 14.
I was taught to read and write Japanese
and while it was interesting, I wasn't all THAT passionate about it.
UNTIL the time I turned 16,
An exchange student came to our school from Japan.
There are students that want to study abroad in the U.S.
and since my school, Falls Church High School
had a Japanese language program
it was picked to host exchange students from Japan.
So I made my first Japanese friend!
Everyday we were in Marching Band together
and for once I learned
normal, casual Japanese
from another girl my own age.
She even taught me her local Hiroshima dialect
Like, it's Mickey-D's, not Maccahs!
and slang like "Like" and "I gotta".
Japanese became more real and fun.
So I was sixteen and people in my church
heard that I was really getting into Japanese,
so word got around
and a friend of my parents
introduced me to a couple in Higashi-Zushi
where I made my first visit to Japan.
I was 16 and went to Japan for the first time in Spring.
And once I actually saw it with my own eyes
I got really serious about my studies.
Eventually I ended up at William and Mary,
a college just a bit south in the state of Virginia.
My college also had courses in Japanese
and I was allowed to start at the advanced level because I had studied for 4 years in high school.
I was finally starting to get into the intense classes!
But, in your 2nd or 3rd year of college,
it was common for kids
to use that year to study abroad if they could speak another language.
That was WAY to expensive for me
and on top of that, you can't earn as many credits abroad
so most kids end up having to stay an extra
semester or two, aka, EXTRA tuition costs!
So, I gave up on getting to study abroad.
I didn't return to Japan until my 3rd year,
when I heard about the Freeman Foundation grant
and applied.
Thanks to my Fellowship professor I got to do research in Japan,
but once I got there
I realized everyone was EXCEPTIONALLY good
with amazing academic background and such.
These weren't kids who just studied in college,
they had studied Japanese since high school or before
and they were all just so good.
Looking at them, I really started to realize
how important it was that I also had a head start.
Even now I am still so grateful.
But even after I graduated
there was the Critical Language Scholarship
sponsoring students who speak
world languages not often taught in the states
and because of that scholarship
I was able to study abroad almost a week after I graduate college.
But everyone was from Harvard, Brown U.,
California and other top-notch places.
Being surrounded by those types of students,
and learning not just textbook Japanese,
but practical, working-world Japanese
was such a tremendous opportunity to grow for me.
After I graduated there
I moved back to the states, to New York City.
I eventually became a translator
and worked at a news company as a reporter
covering business and finance news from Japan.
I even got to translate Japan's Nikkei Shinbun,
which is full of difficult terms and topics.
But marketing, corporate strategy, business ventures,
working for a companies in such interesting fields
allowed me to arrive at where I am today.
Currently I'm a second-year grade student at an MBA program in Japan,
but at the same time,
I also get to do similar work,
part time for a big firm here in Japan.
I do very similar work in Japan now.
With YouTube, many of you know,
for over 10 years or so now
I would make videos to practice my Japanese
which led to my side work for Japanese TV
as a guest reporter on their international broadcasts,
about traveling Japan from a non-Japanese viewpoint.
These are the types of jobs I never imagined as kid
and I truly am so tremendously grateful.
By telling you all this,
I don't want to brag or toot my own horn,
I'm telling these stories because
I want to share how learning a language early on
opened the door for me to have all of these chances.
Before you start choosing your major or what you want to do,
before you decide what you want to do with your life,
if you can experience language while you're young
or even just experience a culture that's different from your own
that can lead to so many precious opportunities.
So people ask why I speak Japanese, or is it only for anime or something like that,
maybe at first, anime is why I got into Japanese,
but why I chose it as a subject,
as a key piece of my education,
and as a tool in my own career,
the reason I speak Japanese today
is because I had access to something new at at young age.
When you get to college you start focusing on what you should do
but before that, why not build your experiences
and learn something so different from what you know
see a culture that challenges your own.
Doing that can greatly broaden the doors and paths available to you.
So in one year, when I graduate here in Japan
I'll re-enter the workforce,
but not just in Japan,
I hope that somewhere between the US and Japan
that I can leverage these experiences
and begin building up and helping other students.
I'm not even done learning language,
I know I have plenty of room to improve
but I just wanted to look back on my journey so far
and encourage more students to go after their goals as soon as possible.
Whatever it may be, now, today, tomorrow, it doesn't matter
as long as you start soon!
I've been feeling more and more that it's time for me to start giving back
and I'll talk more about that in a future video
but until then
I just wanted to have this honest chat today.
Whether it's study abroad, a job, school, or whatever,
what are you aiming at? What are you goals?
If you have any questions or ideas
please write them in a comment below.
So, that's all for today!
Thank you SO MUCH for watching today!
I can't wait to see what you write in the comments.