Hello everyone I have just recently found textfugu and have decided to join up. I have tried studying Japanese in the past but with one thing and another (i.e lack of structure in my studies and general apathy caused by work) I have not made much progress in quite a while I can read Hiragana and Katakana if given a little time but I am certainly not fluid enough in my translation as I would like to be. Kanji had me stumped I know some but I went the pure memory route and after about the 200 mark I sort of plateaued in my studies and became a bit disheartened.

Recently however some things have changed I decided to leave my job and try and sort myself out. I have been interested in learning Japanese for years ever since a friend and I took a holiday over there for a fortnight (in Tokyo) and had an amazing experience so if I ever get the chance to go back I would like to be able to communicate with them in their own language, I would also love to be able to watch and understand japanese anime and films in their native tongue and perhaps most importantly be able to import and play japanese video games rather than having to wait for them to be localised and released over here in the UK (if they ever are).

My recent attempts to turn around my fortunes and give japanese another go is due to a number of factors but the two main ones would be firstly I enjoy studying it (even if I am not a fantastic learner) still after all these years of dipping in and out of it and secondly quite embarrassingly is the anime K-ON!
which reignited my love for all things japanese, on a side note I have also started to play guitar because of that show (to be fair I have had an interest in guitar for a while this just gave me the last push) and have improved considerably over the last few months. Needless to say I have not told my friends this reason for learning the guitar (they may give me some funny looks and it will destroy my street cred… well it would if I had any).

I have tried the free lessons in textfugu and have been impressed so far, hopefully new material will keep being added so I can continue my studies and dont find myself in a sort of no mans land again.

Ok thats it back to studying.