Hi everyone. I’m trying to do the things this book says, so I’m introducing myself, lol.

はじめまして。よろしくお願いします。

My irl name is Tawnya. Use that katakana up there as a pronunciation guide. Don’t let the “w” mix you up. I generally tend to go by Dirk or DirkGently online, though, so feel free to call me that (If you don’t know who Dirk Gently is… he is a fab detective character created by Douglas Adams. And if you haven’t read Douglas Adams, you should do that. Koichi-san will surely endorse this recommendation, as I’ve already noted that he, too, is a Douglas Adams fan, lol).

I’ve been studying Japanese pretty seriously on my own for almost a year now, using various iphone apps and just pulling information from all over. I’ve actually done fairly well this way, considering I can hear/read and understand something like 1200 words and (even though Koichi-san says it’s not that important to start) I can write all of the 1st grade kanji, some 2nd grade kanji, and a bunch of random vocab words to boot.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to try out a more comprehensive SYSTEM of learning instead of just putting all kinds of things together slip-shod like, so here I am. Yay Japanese! I look forward to learning alongside all of you.

P.S. Did anyone else try translating those sentences on their own on that hiragana practice sheet from season 1? I think I managed to roughly understand most of them… but there was one that gave me some pause.