Studying French: Part 3 (Why am I studying French?)

***Read the French version here.***

Everyone I meet tend to ask me, once they learn that I'm learning French: "Why are you studying French?"

Good question. I was born in Japan, my family members are all Japanese, and even though I've lived in six countries I've never lived in a French-speaking region of the world.

My first "additional" language within a school curriculum I learned in elementary school was French. I started learning French when I lived in Malawi, a small country in Africa, some 15 years ago. I didn't have any other language options, for example Japanese, as the school was fairly small. (Luckily my parents are Japanese speakers so by talking to them in Japanese I managed to keep the language.)

I continued learning French in Egypt and Uganda in elementary and middle school. While I studied French in those countries, I had learned from my French teachers and parents that they thought I learned the language pretty fast for someone whose maternal language is not similar to French. My confidence with the language increased after passing the GCSE exam in French one year early in my final year of staying in Uganda.

I moved to China with family and went to an international school in Beijing. Even though I did have the option of choosing another additional language to learn for the IB Language B (Chinese and Spanish) I decided to continue studying French, as I thought I've advanced too far in my French to give it up altogether. I was the only Asian student studying French in my grade, but that wasn't too big of a problem: I told myself I was pretty brave to take that class as a minority. :P I was a lot more worried about not having enough chances and options to practice French outside of class since there obviously weren't a lot of French speakers in Beijing. Nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed studying French, because my French teacher often showed us movies and funny videos in class. She also focused a lot on speaking and writing in real-life situations (e.g. letters of complaint, magazine articles), which to me made the learning process a lot more active rather than passive. I liked it very much.

I didn't study French during university...I picked it up again only five months ago, by my parents' advice and to hopefully increase my chances of working in another Canadian city (Montreal for example). (As much as I like Vancouver, I'd definitely like to live elsewhere in Canada as well. I'm particularly drawn to Montreal due to their renowned music scene and interesting French accent.) I'd also like to visit other French-speaking countries as well, like France and Belgium.

I believe that my French studies would lead me to some interesting job opportunities or otherwise rewarding experiences. Who knows?

Studying French: previous posts (English versions)
Part 1 (Reading and Listening)
Part 2 (Writing and Speaking)