Advancing my knowledge of my heritage and speaking fluently with my family has always been my biggest goals going into my Japanese major. Native speakers of a language with no formal education have a lot of easy access to important phrases and a head start on vocabulary. My Japanese classes helped me fill the gaps in information that I didn't know I had and gave me the structure to learn far more. While I was in Japan, people were surprised with how well I could speak Japanese and appreciated my easy to understand pronunciations. I look forward to use my education to convey the complicated things I want to say in English as part of a fluid conversation.