I am a graduate student (not of language) and my time is limited. About 8 or so months ago, I started getting interested in learning Japanese. I haven’t made a lot of progress, so I am looking for a new system to keep me interested and motivated. I hadn’t learned hiragana until I did the free trial of Textfugu, so I’m interested in continuing with this system and hopefully I can learn a bit of kanji and katakana. I’ve just started season 2.

I think the answer to why Japanese may be in video games. When I was growing up, Japan was the king of video games. My first system was a Sega Genesis. I loved playing Sonic games. I also loved going to my friends’ house and playing The Legend of Zelda. The thing about playing Japanese games as a kid is that sometimes Japanese culture seeps into the game. I didn’t know it at the time, I just thought that weird things happened in video games. I thought the little shopkeeper sprites in RPGs bowed to you because it was easier to see than a nod of the head, or they kept all the merchandise under the counter.

About a year and half ago, I rediscovered JRPGs with a series called Shin Megami Tensei. Almost all the games take place in modern Japan, so I started having a lot of questions about what the characters were doing. “Why do your friends apologize when they visit your house? Do Japanese kids really have school on Saturday? What is Golden week? Who are these spirits that protect Tokyo?” My most important question was “Why do did they phrase the sentence like that? Nobody talks like that.” I knew that to answer these questions, I would have to learn Japanese culture and language.

I bought a set of textbooks and started learning basic Japanese. I still haven’t finished that book, but I am almost done with it. The book was good for learning some vocabulary, but it really lacked in culture. So I started looking for places that talked about culture and found them on YouTube. Eventually, those channels recommended Tofugu and that is how I ended up here.

I’ve almost earned my Master’s degree in a field that focuses on making technology usable for people, since surprisingly the people who make these products are not exactly like the people they make the products for. I started to wonder if my field even exist in Japan and if it would be possible to get a job improving games in Japan. I still don’t know if it exist, but I’m not nearly proficient enough to be able communicate well.

I also know that I may not be able to get a job in my field. The economy is not good right now. But I’ve taught some courses as a graduate student and discovered that I really like teaching. If I can’t get a job in my chosen field, I could get a job teaching English over in Japan. Though I may be a little older than most people who are hired to teach overseas.

I started learning Japanese because I thought it was cool, and I wanted to learn more about the culture that had been subtlety influencing me for many years. I’ve since started to see more practical applications to learning. I hope to keep motivated and become good enough to converse and get a job interacting with designers from Japan.