Vietnamese was my first language that I really fell in love with and it was because of a trip that I took there 3 years ago with a group of friends. We visited Ho Chi Minh City and I loved it. I loved the food, I loved the vibe, and I loved the energy of that city. I came back and decided that I should start taking Vietnamese lessons on italki and it just took off. I’ve been taking lessons and studying Vietnamese since. I didn’t get into Japanese until I attended the Polyglot Conference event in Fukuoka, Japan. There I met a so many other language learners and many of them spoke multiple languages. At first I was content to just stick to one language but one person convinced me that it’s not hard to do two at a time - you just need to enjoy the process. So I started learning Japanese. I’ve been at it for about nine months now and I know it’s going to be a long, long process. One thing that helps is that both my kids are learning Japanese too. Before COVID-19, I took my family to Japan for the first time and we all fell in love with the culture (and the food). My kids also love Japanese anime and manga so it makes it easy. It’s a shared hobby that I have with my kids that we can grow into together.