Hello!

My name is Michael, I’m 25 and I live in Scotland. :)

I’ve been interested in all things Japan since I was a teenager, starting with computer games and anime, but progressing to a love of the way the writing system worked and the culture. As I got older I became seriously interested in cars (I am still mad about them), in particular Japanese cars and car culture, and through this I met a number of Japanese friends online who I began to talk to using broken translator Japanese. My love of Japan has continued to grow, and my wife and hope to visit multiple times, however, I always wanted to be able to speak at least a bit Japanese before we do. Not only that, but to be able to actually talk to my friends and understand Japan without the need of a translator app would be amazing.

Despite this, I was always too scared to attempt learning the language, it just seemed like it would be impossible, and I always believed the things people would say, like “You really need to learn Japanese from childhood”, “Kanji is impossible to learn”, etc, etc…

Last christmas, my wonderful wife kindly bought me My Japanese Coach on the Nintendo DS. It’s a great game, and I was hooked to it very quickly, that is, until I reached the stage of learning hiragana. I tried for a while, but I wasn’t really progressing quickly as it was focussing on the strokes and they just weren’t sticking in my head. I eventually hit that wall that many first time learners do, and I pretty much gave up for a couple of months. I was still very much interested in learning Japanese, and while I was learning a few things here and there, I could really see that not knowing kana was seriously holding me back…

I can’t really remember how I first came across Tofugu, but when I found their guides to learning hiragana and katakana, I was intrigued. I’ve often felt that mnemonic memory tecniques and tricks wouldn’t really work on me, and that I simply had a useless brain! I forced myself to try anyway, and I’m so glad I did! Within a weekend I could read all of the hiragana and katakana characters! I was amazed, and it was such a confidence boost that it kick-started my desire to keep learning. It showed me that modern, fun resources like Tofufu DID exsist, rather than the usual, dusty textbooks and archaic tecniques, taught by stubborn old teachers.

After that, I quickly discovered TextFugu, and after a few minutes of reading the first season, I saw the same, fun, modern approach to learning Japanese I had seen in the kana guides, and I knew I was going to love it. I finished the first season and instantly went and paid to become a lifetime member.

I can’t wait to learn more! :)