Hello, Textfugu. I’m Pål Ruben, 20 years, and from Norway. I’ve been trying to learn japanese for the last 6-7 months through JapanesePod101, but it has been very on and off since I started learning because of school and work, so I have barely learned anything yet. Probably like many others who joined Textfugu now in early january, one of my New Year’s resolution was to learn japanese and I saw that Textfugu was 50% off, so I couldn’t let that opportunity slip.

(the text turned out longer than I first thought, and Pål is pronounced like Paul. Now that is out of the way, you can continue reading or just skip to the end)

The main reason for me learning japanese is because I am very interested in japanese culture, and learning japanese would be helpful. Besides american culture and norwegian culture, japanese is the one that has had the largest impact on me and it is a big part of my life. It started with games, like Pokemon and Super Mario, that I played all the time. Then I discovered anime not long after. One of the highlights of my day when I was 8-9-10 years old was to walk to my grandparents after school, turn on the TV and watch Dragon Ball, Detective Conan (Case Closed), One Piece and even Sailor Moon. The reason why I went to my grandparents to do this was because these shows was only available to me via the german TV-channel RTL 2. And even though everything was dubbed to german and I didn’t understand anything of what was said, it was the most amazing things I had ever seen and it was super fun.

Nowadays I don’t watch so many animes (except One Piece and Detective Conan), and I only play games when there isn’t anything else to do. But I am still trying to take in as much japanese as I can, from watching movies and TV-shows or listening to japanese music (mostly stuff from Yasutaka Nakata (capsule, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Perfume) at the moment). The more I see from Japan, the more I’m sure learning japanese is a good decision.

Japanese culture isn’t the only reason, though. I also want to see Japan, and if I got the opportunity, I would happily live in Japan for some years. Also, I’m sure japanese will be useful in the future, even if it is just to impress friends or be the go-to-guy when someone needs help translating something written japanese. Japanese is also my third step to fulfill my dream to become a master of language (first was english, second was german).

I’m looking forward to learn japanese, and I’m sure Textfugu will help me a lot. Time to start learning!!!
:)

• This topic was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by  Pål Ruben.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by  Pål Ruben.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by  Pål Ruben.