Japan and My Vocation

Ever since I decided that I would major in English (which I decided pretty early on in high school), I also thought it would be amazing to be a translator. I had always wanted to study Japanese, but I never had the chance to do so until I arrived at Maryville College. After studying the language for over two years now, I can firmly say that I would love to translate Japanese. Either Japanese to English or English to Japanese would be fine with me; I just want to work with these two languages.

I know that it will take a lot of work and a lot of studying to achieve this goal. This is the biggest reason I want to study abroad in Japan. I know that this is the best way to work toward my goal of being proficient in Japanese. While I was in Japan for just two short weeks, my listening and comprehension skills improved far beyond the level I had reached studying in America among my other classes. I can only imagine how much my Japanese will improve in 15 weeks, surrounded by native speakers.

I believe that taking Japanese language courses in Japan is the best thing I can do at the moment to move closer toward my goal of someday translating. I don't know how long it will take for me to reach that goal, but this is a good place to start. There probably aren't a lot of other people that seek to actively make a career out of the language of the country they are going to, so I hope this isn't too simple. But I hope to have a firm grasp of Advanced Japanese by the time I return home. In case I decide to work in Japan after graduation (which is something I am considering doing depending on my level of Japanese at this point), knowing as much Japanese as possible will also help me in whatever I choose to do there. Depending on my workload abroad, it may also be beneficial to do some volunteer programs to start networking. But this seems to be something that I will have to examine while abroad.