Well, I’ve been signed up for textfugu for a few weeks now (although I discovered Tofugu/Textfugu, and read through Season 1 at the end of last year) but am only now getting around to doing my introduction. :)

I’m 33, live in SoFlo, work in live theater mostly, have far too many likes & interests, and discovered my interest in learning Japanese after accidently finding the band X Japan on YouTube, which I talk about (excessively) in my profile. It is not my only interest by any means, but it’s how I got into wanting to learn Japanese. The WHY of learning it, remains to be seen entirely, but i’m sure as I go along, I will discover more and more reasons to keep learning. One (I’m only divulging ONE ;)), being to visit there and be able to read and speak the language, but I think that a desire to travel to a country, is an inevitable desire, when you really get into any foreign language. :) One thing I’ve realized so far, is that when you are in school, it is such a thrill (that many people usually totally take for granted, as I did) to be learning new things. It’s a sad thing (to me anyway) to have left school, and to be going about life just working trying to pay your rent, and hanging out with friends, and maybe doing a little traveling, and not really learning anything in-particular. I miss learning, and I am loving the time spent learning Japanese so far. I can read hiragana and katakana now (though i’m trying not to jump ahead, because my writing skills are fairly non-existent, and I am just learning grammer and sentence structure. So, don’t worry Koichi, I will try to stay right on the course and not skip around! ;)) and am excited to keep going. I am totally thrilled when I see a Japanese word and I can sound it out and can figure out what it says. :D And besides the awesomely in-depth learning system that Textfugu is, Textfugu seems worth it even if just for the forums, because man, it’s unbelievably frustrating, being so into something, and having virtually all of your friends and family (most all of mine are open-minded, but have no particular interest in Japanese) not interested in the fact that you can read the word Hiragana in Hiragana! :y

So, Hello to all, and feel free to say hello back, or ask me anything, although I am not the person to ask any questions about Japanese too. :) I also am using an iPhone app called Busuu that has many lessons for free, and it’s cool, cause you can hear something like the word Konichiwa, and at the same time read it in Japanese, then switch it to Romaji (JUST to check to make sure you read the Japanese characters correctly, that you have learned through Textfugu. ;)). There are a lot of supplements that are good I’m sure. That’s just one that is working for me so far.

Cheers! ;)

helen<3