Hi Brian,

Thank you for the comment!

出身 is "from ~" and your understand of it as "hometown" is correct. If you lived in one place for your whole life, using 出身 should be easy. But I understand the difficulty if you lived in many places. You Japanese sentence is pretty good, but here's a bit of correction.

私の出身はシアトルですけれでもフェニクスに生まれました. 今オクラホマシティに住んでいます。

>> 私はフェニクスで生まれて、シアトルで育ちました。今はオクラホマシティに住んでいます。

育つ（そだつ）= grow up/being raised

私はアメリカから来ました。出身はオクラホマシティです。

This sentence is perfect as an introduce yourself sentence when travelling. Or you could simply say;

私はアメリカのオクラホマシティから来ました。

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Miki H

Team JapanesePod101.com

Thanks for the lesson!

So what exactly does 出身 mean? Does it mean the town I currently live in? Or does it mean the place where I was raised? Or does it specifically mean where I was born? (Or maybe it refers to all of these meanings like the word "hometown" does in English?)

Your help in explaining would be appreciated! 😄

My life story is a little complicated. I was born in Phoenix, but I grew up in Seattle and now I live in Oklahoma City.

Would I maybe say -- "私の出身はシアトルですけれでもフェニクスに生まれました. 今オクラホマシティに住んでいます。" ?

Bonus question -- when traveling, do these sentences look okay?

"私はアメリカから来ました。出身はオクラホマシティです。"

Thanks so much. I hope that all makes sense. :)