Why Study Japanese?

I have been fascinated with Japanese culture for pretty much as long as I can remember. From an early childhood filled with Pokemon and YanYan to my trip to Japan when I was 15, I have constantly attempted to immerse myself in Japanese culture. Back at home in San Francisco, many of our friends are Japanese speakers, and hearing them use the language is a constant reminder of how beautiful and interesting it is. After spending four years learning French, a romance language, I decided to switch it up and go for something completely different by choosing to study Japanese.
I find it so exciting that I will soon be reading entirely new alphabets! Hopefully, someday soon, I will get to go back to Japan and use my knowledge of the language to actually get around – last time I was there, I had no clue what I was doing and relied heavily on my group's tour guide.
After the first four weeks, I think the thing that I am struggling with most is the order of words in Japanese. It is so drastically different than English or French that I just don't even know where to start when composing sentences. I think that I have to commit myself to making the sentence patterns seem like second nature and then it will become much more clear to me.

おーなまえは？

はじめまして。わたしはカナダ・チョートです。じゅうきゅうさいです。カリフォルニアのサンフランシスコからきました。コロンビアだいがくのにほんごのだいがくせいです。いちねんせいです。どうぞよろしく。