I set myself some goals during the Coronavirus lockdown to work on, so as to use this newly found free time productively. One of these goals is to start learning Japanese.

Japanese, in my opinion, is a beautiful language, and one that I have been interested in learning for quite a long time. However, I struggled to learn much at all in the past, as Japanese has completely different alphabets (it has 3 main alphabets – Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji) to Western languages; I thought it would take me a long time to pick up the basics, so as to give me a groundwork to build my Japanese up from.

Aside from their language, I also have a firm interest in Japan as a country, as well as their unique culture and society. When I’m at home in England with my family, we watch NHK World-Japan, which provides the latest news and interesting insights into the life of the country.

Also, my favourite band, Monkey Majik, is made up of Japanese and Canadian band members (the lyrics of their songs reflect this, with some lyrics in English as well as in Japanese).

I hope one day, when I have learnt a bit of the language, I can visit Japan, and experience its fascinating culture.