[sarvodaya]

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

Hi, sarvodaya. I’m Yuri.
Nice to meet you.

Hello Yuri.
Pleased to meet you too.

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

Let me introduce myself.
I’m a housewife, used to work as a pharmacist.
I live in Kasawaki city, Kanagawa prefecture.

Kawasaki, I see that's near the Tama Hills, where "Pom Poko" was set if I'm not mistaken! (I'm a bit of a Studio Ghibli fan.)

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

I love dancing. When I was a student, I practiced Karate. (Kyokushin, of course! What’s yours?)

I studied Kamishin Ryu under Sensei Phil Snewin.
I studied 上新 流 under 先生 フィル Snewin.

Is that right? Is there a way to transliterate "Snewin"?

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

My grandfather, my uncle and my cousins are Buddhist priests.

Gosh, I've obviously come to the right place to learn a little about Buddhism as well.

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

I’ve been studying English for many years, but still have a lot of difficulties writing and speaking English.

I must say your English is quite excellent, Yuri.

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

How are you going to study Japanese besides with this forum? I mean, will you go to a Japanese conversation school, or study by yourself?
I’d like to help you, but I don’t see how I can help you specifically.
Will you ask questions here? My answering your questions will be enough?

I will be teaching myself Japanese. That is how I learned the patchy bit of Russian I know, but I would rather be more thorough with Japanese, especially as I very much want to visit Japan one day. I am really at the beginning and still becoming familiar with the kana. I have been working my way through this website:

Teach Yourself Japanese

I may have jumped the gun slightly in asking to set up an exchange so early, but in fact I am happy to offer as much help as anyone needs and get to know some people here on the forum before I have a great many questions myself. At least in this way I will have some Japanese friends to ask about the language when I do become more advanced. As a corollary of this, please do not feel guilty if, to begin with, you are asking more questions than me, as I'm sure that will balance out in time! Besides, I enjoy helping, and in fact I put some stock in the phrase "homines dum docent, discunt".

As I can see you are quite an advanced English speaker, do feel free to ask more involved questions. Part of my work at the Oxford English Dictionary involves a lot of research into the history of the English language, as well as requiring an intricate knowledge of grammar, so if there are any more esoteric questions you have then I'd love to tackle those too.

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

I believe you would like to study polite Japanese, so If you want, I will write here in polite (kind of formal, but not too formal) Japanese. Is this OK with you?

That sounds appropriate. As we start out, please could you include a couple of basic sentences in your post, which I can try and tackle and deal with any issues that arise from there. How does that sound?

Originally Posted by YuriTokoro

If you don’t mind, could you give me one correction of my English in this post? (Which expression do you think to be worst in what I wrote today?)
Thank you. See you soon!

I have to say, I am hard-pushed to find a particularly meaty error.

I don't think anything you have written is strictly incorrect. The only thing I can see is where you say:

I...still have a lot of difficulties writing and speaking English.

It is slightly more natural to say "I still have a lot of difficulty writing and speaking English", but this is an extremely minor point!

Actually where you say:

I’m a housewife, used to work as a pharmacist.

Now I know this is only a casual introduction, but strictly this sentence is not grammatical as the two clauses are disconnected. You could say:

I’m a housewife and I used to work as a pharmacist.

or

I’m a housewife, who used to work as a pharmacist.

or even

I am a housewife but used to work as a pharmacist.

While it is also strictly correct to elide "I am" to "I'm" and still have a second verb relying on the same subject, thus:

I’m a housewife and used to work as a pharmacist.

it doesn't flow as naturally.

If you wanted to maintain the disconnected clauses, you would need a semicolon and a repetition of the subject of the verb, thus:

I’m a housewife; I used to work as a pharmacist.

I hope that helps!