In July, there was a speech contest at the Japanese language school. I talked about the time when I first came to Japan and spoke to a Japanese person.

When I had just arrived in Japan, I received chocolates from an elderly Japanese lady. However, to my surprise, she put the chocolate wrappers I had eaten into her purse. I was astonished when I saw that.

I gave a speech about this surprising incident and ended up being the top in the N4 class.

When my name was called as the first-place winner, I couldn’t believe it. It was because everyone else had given great speeches. I didn’t expect to win first place, but I was very happy when the teacher praised me. I had rewritten my speech multiple times and worked hard to memorize it. I struggle with Japanese particles (じょし), so the teacher told me to “redo it” several times. Finally, I was able to give the speech in front of everyone and received a nice prize for being first.

I feel a sense of accomplishment for being praised by the teacher. I want to become even better at Japanese.