As hard as it is to believe, I started Japanese when I was 8 years old. I come from an international school in Paris (Ecole Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel), in which Japanese is mandatory for all 3rd graders! Students then had the choice the continue or not, and I have not stopped since then. Technically it has therefore been 10 years that I have studied the language - I say technically because the length of study does not reflect my level. Since I was little when I started to study Japanese, we took a very long time to cover the material. For instance it took us 4 years to learn hiragana and katakana (3 weeks here).
I even had the luck of being able to go on a school trip to Kyoto, as an exchange program with Doshisha University. For three weeks we each stayed with an unknown family that took us around the city and had us visit key places. It was one of the most amazing trips of my life.
I'm happy to be starting japanese over again because it is allowing me to strengthen my poor level and meet lots of new people!
