PE Goals

My goals are to practice commonly used phrases with a student of Japanese at Bryn Mawr with whom I live. I will also do shadowing to work on pronunciation of sounds different from english such as in ら and to improve my prosody.To help acclimate myself to the language and pronunciation, I will watch episodes from Samurai Champloo in Japanese with English subtitles. 

Introduction

はじめまして　マイアーです　だいがくいんせいです　どうぞ　よろしく

Why Japanese?

I am studying Japanese because I am intrigued by the culture both because of its differences from western culture and because of its similarities. I have spent my entire life living in America and Europe and thus have no direct experience with Asian cultures in general. The close relationship Japan has had with the United States during the later part of the last century makes it seem more accessible than other Asian cultures. More than this, though, is the affinity I feel for Japan because of its stark differences from western cultures. The intense attention to detail and thoughtfulness of Japanese culture resonates with my personality.