Pourquoi le français?

I am now at a point in my academic career where I must pick a language to take up to the 203 level. My options at PSU are Japanese, German, or French. One would think that my natural inclination would be Japanese, but many things have changed since I started going to college. I have put most of my childish things behind me. I am no longer mystified by the Japanese people or the mythos of the samurai. The anime and manga I used to enjoy sit dormant on my bookshelf and are slowly replaced by old tomes depicting the antiquities.

As I have been developing my understanding of history I have gone from a military historian to having interests in cultural history as well. This goes well in hand with military history as one often effects the other. Besides the new found interest in cultural history I have gained a lot of interest in French history. I should clarify that it is an interest rather than an infatuation such that I had with Japan. I decided that I needed to have some proper reasoning before choosing one language over another.

• I have taken a bit of first year Japanese, so getting back into it while starting over would be relatively easier than it was the first time around.
• Both of my Sisters speak German, they could be a valuable asset in assisting me with the language, but neither have gone far in college level German.
• I have a friend who speaks excellent French who could potentially help me if I was struggling, though I should not expect it as such things are always circumstantial in my life. That aside I took two years of it in high school and was asked to join the second year AP French class before the teacher went on hiatus.
• If I were to take my scholarship so far as to be able to visit archives I would want to be able to translate the natural language. English will take me far in this endeavor but I need something besides English. French is spoken in more areas of my personal interest that offset the English speaking areas. German was close, but its areas outside of Germany are more in eastern European nations of which I have little interest.
• A particular interest of mine which has seen little research is Frances role in the Cold War.

So French it shall be. May it take me far.