I’m a self-learner from the UK, I have had pretty much no experience with Japanese to this point, but I’m getting there. (If a bit slowly) :)
In school, I learnt a mix of languages. French, Spanish and then German. I can’t remember a lick of French or Spanish, but those were mandatory, and I didn’t really have much interest in them. I absolutely loved German, it was probably the first time I actually enjoyed learning another language. I still try to keep up with it whenever I get the chance, which unfortunately isn’t too often. I can still understand a fair amount of it though.
I always wanted to learn Japanese as another language. It fascinated me, I’d only ever had a doppel-B as a non-romanised character, so having a language with not one writing system, but 4 , was pretty jaw-dropping to myself. I took one look at a Hiragana chart and was rightfully terrified, so I put it off for ages. I then thought I could get by by using Romaji. Wrong. I then moved to a mess of resources that included youtube videos, Tofugu and whatever textbook I could get my hands on. That obviously didn’t work, and I got here by the recommendation of Tofugu. Using Tofugu, I was able to read and write both Hiragana and Katakana in less than a week on my own time, unaided by anyone else. (Go check out Tofugu’s ultimate guide to Hiragana/Katakana, you will pick it up stupidly quick.)
So, i’m here to boost my vocabulary, and take on the dreaded Kanji (*Cue horror scream sound-effect), but hey, I’m absolutely loving it at the moment. Everything’s well laid out, it’s actually fun to do, which surprised me at first, and I can do it at my own pace. All in all, it’s looking pretty good!
-Akagi