English native, fluent in Japanese. Next up is Swedish!

[gegegeno]

Hi all,

Not my first post (woops), but I'm an Australian who's been learning Japanese for more years than I can count and just starting on Swedish.

I speak Japanese quite fluently, and spent a year studying the language in a Japanese university. I read newspapers and light novels in Japanese and am working my way up to more difficult books. My writing ability is reasonable too, but I don't write much in English to begin with, let alone in Japanese! My goal with it is to become an interpreter, so I'm still working to improve my ability all the time.

During the aforementioned year in Japan I met my girlfriend, a Swedish-speaking Finn. All her friends and family speak Swedish natively (and I have a couple of friends in Sweden too), so I'd like to learn a bit of Swedish so I can communicate with them more easily.

Anyway, nice to meet you all. See you around!

どうぞよりしくお願いいたします。

Tack!

[caparica007]

Welcome to the forum gegenom I'm sure you'll enjoy it here and you'll be a good help for those learning Japanese. How was it like living in Japan for one year? I was in Tokyo for one month and it was hard for me...

[gegegeno]

It was an interesting experience, that's for sure. I was lucky enough to have spent some time there before that (a few weeks in Tokyo for me too, and another few weeks travelling Tokyo to Kansai), so I was spared a lot of the culture shock.

I studied at a big university in Osaka and lived on campus so the lifestyle was really easy. I worked hard in class and a lot of the time instead of directly studying in my spare time made a concerted effort to go and use it with Japanese friends in "real life". Apart from around the end of semesters when I had exams and reports due, I was pretty laid back.

If anyone gets an opportunity to go on a student exchange, I couldn't recommend it enough, especially to Japan. I had so many opportunities to see and do things as an exchange student that I could never have done or even known about if I was just on holiday or working there. Some highlights were the overnight school trips to interesting destinations, traditional art workshops, a particular drunken afternoon spent in a dodgy down-town theater with one of the professors...

I could really go on and on, but I think you get the point. It was an absolutely incredible experience, and one that I won't be forgetting anytime soon. If you ever get the opportunity to go on a cultural exchange or learn your language in that country, I highly recommend it.

[xxxxxx]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

[SpiralArchitect]

Welcome gegeno. As someone who is learning Japanese, I feel even happier welcoming you here. I am pretty sure there are other people trying to learn Swedish here, even though I can't seem to recall who.

[seville009]

こんいちは and welcome!!

I can't wait to see what you can bring to the forum for all of us! I've been to a few forums and they are full of Japanese speakers but they don't have and real experience in Japan and I think that is important! This a great forum for folks like us. Again welcome!

[gegegeno]

皆さんの親切な言葉にありがとうございました！

Thanks everyone for the kind words of welcome. I can tell this forum could use a couple more Japanese learners, and I'll try my best to contribute to those subforums in particular.

It looks like there aren't too many Swedish learners either though, so maybe I should get a move on with my learning of that language so I can post there too!