My youngest son is spending a month in Japan with the family he met last year when he won a Sony-sponsored scholarship for students. He spent six fabulous weeks there last summer perfecting his language skills. In fact, he speaks so well that a teacher mistook him for a regular student and chided him for taking photos during class, not realizing my son was an exchange student from America!

I’ve always loved all things Japanese, so I was very happy that my cherubs, both interested in languages, chose to study Japanese. And while I’m not Japanese myself, they both have some Japanese blood from their great-grandmother on their father’s side.

Maybe that’s why I can’t speak the language, but they were both able to pick it up fairly well in school. It’s in their blood!

Or is it the amount of Japanese media available to us? We play JRPGs; Final Fantasy and Nintendo formed their early reading materials. There are exchange students all over the place. There’s all sorts of podcasts and videos they can watch in any language they choose, thanks to the internet. They can watch anime on cable TV.

When I was growing up in Hawaii (back in the dinosaur days), we didn’t have cable TV…but we did have a Japanese TV station. You’d think I’d have a better grasp of Japanese as we watched that station all the time. Sadly, what little I knew faded over time and now when my sons speak to me, I only get a quarter of whatever they’re saying.

In any case, I’m really proud of them both. And I’m also very grateful to my employer, through whose generosity my son went to Japan in the first place. It’s been a life-changing experience for him and for me.

Now he has to explain to me what’s going on when we watch Japanese movies. Aiee!