Hello everyone! My name is Elizabeth Chandler, and I am a Junior at University of Oregon. I am a Japanese language intensive and Global Studies major with a focus on international diplomacy in East Asia. I am also minoring in Asian studies.

I have been studying Japanese for around eight years, ever since Middle school when I first discovered anime and manga. My favorite part about learning Japanese is kanji! Even though it’s completely unnecessary, my dream is to one day be able to pass the Kanji Kentei level 1 test, but I’d have to know over 6 thousand Kanji and I am nowhere near that haha. Next year, if COVID doesn’t interfere, I plan on spending an entire year studying abroad in Japan to improve my Japanese.

I can also speak a little Korean (I studied it for two years) and can read and write some traditional Chinese (though I cannot speak it to save my life, as I find tones very difficult.)

I decided to take this course because I have previously taken courses with Professor Idemaru and greatly enjoyed it! I love the Japanese language and am very interested in learning about linguistics, so this seemed like the perfect class to take.

My hobbies include reading Star Wars book, watching anime (my favorites are Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Parts 3,5, and 7 are my favorites), Fullmetal Alchemist, and Fairy Tail), translating Japanese, reading manga in Japanese (Fairy Tail and Jojo mainly), and playing video games (mainly RPG style games like Dragon Age, Star Wars the Old Republic, etc. I also like Red Dead Redemption 2 though, I don’t know if you can consider that an RPG.) I also collect Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure figures (and sometimes do translations for the Discord server).

Anyways, I look forward to having fun with everyone in this class and learning a lot!