Hello hello! My name is Tyler. I’m a second year Japanese major currently attending school at Ohio State University, hoping to one day forge myself a comfy throne somewhere in the games industry through translation. Also, I just really like languages. dang.

We use the JSL/JWL textbooks here at OSU, since one of the authors is a professor here – and while I love that goofy textbook to death, a lot of times I feel like it just doesn’t do a good job of communicating certain things to me. On top of that, our classes are exclusively taught in Japanese, usually by natives – and while that’s awesome, I don’t get many opportunities to ask for clarification on certain grammatical structures etc. It also involves a lot more memorization than I’d like. Also, JWL is a terrible writing program overall. There, I said it. By the third year of the program, we’re only provided like 300 kanji to work with. It is… it is less than impressive.

Anyway, long story short, I got into a study abroad program and will be attending school at the University of Tsukuba starting this August for a whole year. This is kicking me into overdrive mode and I feel like many aspects of my Japanese language skills need bolstering before I am thrust into the wild blue yonder, so here I am! A friend just told me about this site today, and the writing style and internet format immediately grabbed me. Like ten minutes after the site was linked to me, Tofugu had my money and I was off to the races!! I’m actually really excited to go rooting back through all the concepts that I already “know” and strengthening my foundation.

So, uh, yes. Hello! Here I am. As my textbook would put it, “please consider me favorably.”