Hello everyone

After many hours of reading on how I should go about learning Japanese, as a beginner, here I am. I have no prior Japanese language experience, but hope to become, in time, fluent to the point where even snow monkeys can understand me. Come to think of it, they can’t actually talk, so that might not be a good thing. Ok, lets stick with a reasonable goal for now. I want to be able to speak in Japanese as well as the talking cats in the youtube videos. No not the ones that hide in pots, that black one that runs around and makes noises. I love cats.

On a more… realistic note, I am 24 years old, and live in Vancouver Canada. My aspirations are to pick up various Japanese martial arts, such as Aikido which I have done some practice in, to become an RCMP officer (Our national police), and to among other travels, spend a decent portion of time travelling and exploring everything that Japan has to offer. Except whale and octopus. Also, I am hoping to get my TESL certification, that is; teach English as a second language, this coming spring.

I would verymuch like to learn Japanese as I am very interested in Japanese history, and some of the culture. Sure, I love anime, and some manga, and would enjoy to read it in it’s purest form, but I love medieval Japanese history, and ancient. The castles, traditions, weapons, etc. Also, it would be nice to know what my Aikido sensei is saying half the time. I’ll probably find out it was all English afterall and his accent is just heavy… Also, as there are alot of asians where I live, it would probably help me become a police officer, so that too.

I wasn’t really sure where to throw this in there, but I work at Starbucks, and I have a cat, a miniature schnauzer, and two budgies. If you would like any help with your English, please don’t hesistate to bother me. I do corrections and help people out on Livemocha, which seems to be very similar to this Lang-8 site.

Well, that’s that for now, thanks if you read through it all! =P~~~ If you didn’t. Not that I blame you. At all.

Andrew!