Could someone please check this for me?
 

Part of the application for a cultural exchange program I'll be doing in Kanazawa later this year is a self introduction that will be given to the host family I'll be staying with. Could someone please check my grammar? I don't want to appear a total noob to these people, since I should technically be pretty decent by now ^^;

What I want to say:
My name is Teresa Watts. I am 23 years old and live in Australia. I have been studying Japanese for about 3 years and am very interested in Japanese culture. Currently I work as a web designer. I have been to Japan once before on holiday, and am very much looking forward to doing a homestay in Kanazawa.

私はテレサ　ワッツです。私は２３さいそしてオストラ リアに住んでいます。日本語を３年ぐらい勉強していて 、日本文化が好きです。今、私はウェッブデザインに仕 事します。お休みに日本へ行きいました、そしてホムス テイ金沢で...[really not sure how to say looking forward to...]


You'd think I'd be able to write a simple self introduction by now... I really need to study harder ^^; I know my sentence structure is probably a bit too simplistic, but would anyone mind taking a look at it for me?

And does anyone know how to say 'looking forward to'?

テレサ・ワッツと申します。２３さいで、オーストラリ アに住んでいます。日本語を３年ぐらい勉強していて、 日本文化が好きです。今、私はウェッブデザインの仕事 をしています。お休みで日本へ行ったことがあります。 今回金沢でホームステイをすることを楽しみにしていま す。

Deleted two 私's. I left one undeleted but you would sound better if you deleted that one as well. The reader(s) will know exactly who you are talking about. Unlike English, Japanese isn't a me-me-me language.

looking forward to ~ = ~ を楽しみにしている

Please feel free to ask for further explanations.

Ah! You are a lifesaver :) Thankyou so much.

Looking at your corrections, my grammar is quite horrible ^^; I have a lot of studying to do so I don't embarrass myself there.

No offence, Teresa.. but after 3 years.. you should be almost fluent by now..?

That would all depend on the frequency and intensity of studying sir.

I was going to say that but my internet connection died ^_^ If I was keeping up with the part time course material and revising as I should be, I should have been able to complete JLPT level 3 and be a bit further than that by now. I'm not. I have a lot of things going on in my life, and unfortunately Japanese study is the one that has sunk low on the priority list. I'm trying to remedy that, but it's hard! I should definitely be far, far better than I am by now, I'll admit that, but I don't think even if I was keeping up I'd be able to claim to be fluent.

Japanese is quite a difficult language though - honestly I'd be a little skeptical if someone studied for 3 years then claimed they were fluent, especially in both speaking and reading/writing. Maybe if they lived in Japan and were studying Japanese full time the whole time?

This could be where your going wrong.. a second language needs dedication. In the class that I'm in, people turn up, take very little notes, try to avoid answering questions and never offer feedback and then never study between classes, yet they complain when they don't understand whats going on.

I'm full time at uni doing teacher training and i have two jobs (1 daytime, 1 evening and weekends) and quite a steady social life considering the amount of work i get from each, yet i still manage to keep up to a study routine (daily kanji practise, listening practise and reading practise with class on a monday night for speaking practise).

I'm by no means putting my all into learning Japanese, I wish I had more time for it, but if i can do it, anyone can :)

If I'm not at a substancial level by the time i get to 3 years study ill be rather upset.. but ill keep on going.. I mean, I've been into the language for nearly 2 years now and have "seriously" studied for.. 8 months.. and I'd like to say i could have written what you have no probs..

You only have to look at the progress of people such as "darksyndrem' and "lucas89" to see what I mean. They obviously have more time than I do, but look what can be done! I'm sure other JF members will back me up on this!

Quite the contrary, actually. Most people say that Japanese is one of the easiest languages to learn. Its just so logical!

日本語の勉強も頑張って下さい！

shad0w, a couple of points.

(1) Not everyone has the opportunity to attend a full-time class. Although in this case, Teresa is doing to do a homestay, so presumably she's a student. She has less excuse unless she lives in a small area without much opportunity to practice the language (community college, etc.).

(2) It is absolutely impossible to be fluent in a second language after three years of study unless (a) you are a genius/savant, or (b) you are in the country of the foreign language.

Even after living in Japan for a year, studying for three in a university setting, including getting a degree in the language (in addition to another, to be fair), and continuing my usage for the past three years since graduation, I still wouldn't consider myself to be fluent.

Fluency is very, very difficult to achieve. It takes years and years. Hell, it takes years and years of living in the country in which the language is spoken natively.

It is very possible, with hard work, to be conversational after three years. But fluent? Highly unlikely.

In my honest evaluation, I'd say Teresa is where I was after a year. However, I was attending a group of native Japanese speakers to practice with them, and I have a natural gift with languages. I wouldn't be too quick to judge her work ethic.

I think her composition skill is decent for an off-and-on three-year student of the language.

And there's no way anyone who has ever attempted a language other than Japanese will say it's an easy language. Aside from the ridiculously complex writing system compared to 95% of the other languages out there, anyone who is coming from an Indo-European language system is in for a shock, as word order and so many culturally-affected grammar points are extremely different. Just for one example, auxiliary verbs in Japanese become part of the verbs themselves, while in English, Spanish, etc., they are still separable:

Yo he comido.
I have eaten.
食べます。Yes, "-masu" is an auxiliary verb! Origin of -masu There's an excellent discussion about where it comes from (by a knowledgeable native speaker), if you care to broaden your knowledge of Japanese language history.

Japanese is considered by many US government organizations who have studied language acquisition (CIA, State Department, etc.) in order to effectively instruct their employees to be one of the hardest languages for a native English speaker to learn.

In case anyone's curious, if I recall correctly, Dutch was considered one of the group of easiest languages to learn. I think it was classified as easier even than German, Spanish, etc.

I speak Spanish, English, and Japanese, can read French, Italian, Portuguese, and have some small ability in Chinese. The only language harder than Japanese in that list is Chinese, in my opinion.

And the only reason I say Chinese is harder is because of the writing system. Despite "seven" years of study in Japanese, compared to a semester of Chinese, my Chinese accent is closer to native. Furthermore, the sentence order is very much similar to English. It's just those darn hanzi!

I agree with everything that was just posted. You will not be fluent in Japanese after three years of study. You may have an advanced knowledge of the language and could possibly even hold a limited conversation with a native speaker (with plenty of "what does XXX mean?") but you will not be fluent by any means unless you really have no life. By fluent I mean that you should be able to understand a multitude of words that aren't used in every day speech, like "Algebra", "Documentary", etc. Native understanding would require much longer of course. I would say that Nagoyankee has a native understanding of English, so it would be interesting to see how fluent he was in English after three years of study.

I also disagree about Japanese being very easy... Certain aspects of it are easy (reading/writing Hiragana/Katakana is very easy) and others are much more difficult (native pronunciation of certain words and Kanji, and the numerous dialects.)

Some things can also be very hard for English speakers to understand, like descriptor words that seem odd when translated (鼻が高い = tall nose?)

As Kyle said, there are a multitude of other languages that are much easier to learn (for an English speaker, at least) like Spanish.

To further expound on my discussion of language difficulty for an English speaker, the US government has a list. The original list is gone from the government's website, but Wikibooks has preserved the list: Language Learning Difficulty for English Speakers - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

Among the simplest languages to learn according to actual studies done by the government are Afrikaans, Dutch, and Spanish.

The most difficult level contains, among others, Japanese, Chinese, Cantonese, Arabic, and Korean. So congratulations on picking such a damn hard language, everyone! ;)