Jacqui McGinn (@jacquimcginn)

So much relief reading this. The Japanese parts resonate the most right now. I have JLPT 1 and my degrees are Linguistics and teaching (which was based on teaching Japanese) and I'm pretty sure your Japanese level is well above mine because I fell into learning Japanese through living there and avoided doing anything formally until I realised it might help to have a certificate. Seeing that the self doubt will never go away no matter how much more you keep studying is so good to hear! But I will say that my heart was happy hearing your pronunciation of Japanese words in the Winter Writing Sanctuary. I know from reading your background that your Japanese and knowledge of Japan is fantastic, but hearing you pronounce the words and the quality of energy you said them with gave me that heartfelt sense of "ahhhhh... she really gets it". I will be coming back to this to digest the other points too <3