Hi!

So, I just finished the first season, having told myself that if I was genuinely impressed with the material and was still serious about putting the time and effort into learning Japanese, I would pay for lifetime access at the end of it. Turns out all of that is still true, so here I am.

Per the first couple of lessons in that season here are my goals and reasons for learning Japanese:

I want to be able to competently read and write (by typing, at least) contemporary Japanese at an adult level. I’d also like to be able to follow spoken Japanese well enough to get the meaning of regular conversation and typical media (I can live with not necessarily getting everything, not being able to immediately follow sophisticated topics or technical language, etc). Ideally, I would like to also master spoken Japanese to the point of at least being able to make myself understood in daily situations, such as ordering food, making polite conversation and so on.

I feel that if I am able to get to this level in a reasonable time, I will have enough to build on improving my Japanese by actually interacting with Japanese speakers and reading native Japanese material. I’m under no illusions about the amount of time that has to be put into such an effort and specifically that it needs to be regular sessions rather than occasional marathons. A little self-knowledge there is why my goals are focused where they are; I am much more likely to read than listen to something or try and find someone to speak to, I also very much like Kanji (and I come with some modest knowledge, already, sorry Koichi! It made the first Season a bit easy in places, as I could already read Hiragana and most Katakana but I very much agree with your conclusions about learning and the mistake in teaching adult foreign learners as if they were Japanese children).

Anyway, that’s where I am for right now. I’m not terribly big on using fora, but if anyone has anything to weigh in on or just wants to say “Hi!” I shall be monitoring this topic. :-)

Happy learning!