English

For me, English is the language I speak, listen, read, and think best in. However, my first language is Japanese. I was born in Japan, but when I was five, I came to America. The only words I knew in English were "My name is Tomoyo" and "How are you? I am doing fine". At first, it was hard. I didn't listen to my teacher because I did not understand her. Spelling was the worst. The best part of my day was when I would go to Japanese School where I can be understood and my voice heard. As time passed, however, my English grew stronger and my Japanese stayed as it is, or even worsened. This continued until my preference for language was English. It still is now but I hope that living in Japan will make me fluent in Japanese.
I think English plays a very important role in my life because it is the language that I can be myself. I know that by being able to speak English, a whole range of job opportunities open for me. In addition, speaking English allows me to pursue an education in the United States or any other English speaking country. With these reasons, I am glad that I had the privilege of living in America and in doing so, learning English.
At home, I speak Japanese because my parents would not answer me if I spoke to them in English. At school, however, I speak English. With my brother, I would usually speak English but sometimes Japanese.

I also speak some Spanish, but it is not as good as my English or Japanese. I hope that my Spanish will be as good as my Japanese or my English.

I think that studying English while living in Japan will be hard. Although we are studying or speaking English during school, the rest of the hours we are surrounded by Japanese. I know that I learned my English not by going to school, but by going to the grocery store or any other daily activities. In addition, out of the 7 hours we dedicate to school hours, only one or one and a half hours are spent on English alone. In a week, that is about four hours. And the rest of the one hundred and sixty four hours we are surrounded by mostly Japanese. I think that because of this, students will have a harder time studying English. This also means that students should study more English because they do not have the suitable surroundings in which many other students living in English speaking countries do.