Hi, everyone!
At first I didn’t want to join the forum, because I’m not good at forum communications (or at any communications for that matter). But then, after getting through four seasons of TextFugu, it dawned upon me, that it’s a bit impolite to study here without at least introducing myself. So, here I am.
Why am I studying Japanese? Well, actually, my reason is a bit childish (and that’s part of the reason I was so hesitant to join the forum)…
When I was a child, I watched a lot of anime on TV. Jetter Mars, Robotech, Ultraman, Wonder Beat Scramble, Robotech, Grand Prix, Sally the Witch, Grendizer… It was wonderful. I considered people, who make such anime to be nothing less than wizards. So, for me Japanese forever became the Language of Wizards. Learning it was my childhood dream.
My first attempt on realizing this dream was twelve years ago. It failed. Looking back, I see that it was bound to fail. As こういち先生　has mentioned in the Tofugu weekly mailing, it’s crucial to find

anything that is “fully formed” or “all inclusive.”

I’ve managed to get my hands on some textbooks but they were all fragmentary. The first half of my main textbook was dedicated entirely to the theory of grammar. “Predicative adjectives”, “semipredicative adjectives”, “cases”…
五十音, that should have been on the first page, was instead on the page 72. As a matter of fact, it was only by accident that I’ve found out that there were some lessons and excercises too.
To cap it all the font was quite small, and as it was a real paper book, there was no way to increase the font size other than to use a magnifier…
The second attempt was five years ago. This time I’ve found myself an application. It wasn’t bad, but it was too, should I say, amorphous. There were some lessons and some excercises, but mostly I had to decide for myself, which parts to use and when. It might be good as an additional resource, but not as a main textbook. So, my second attempt failed too.
The third attempt is this one. At first, I decided to concentrate entirely on learning kanji. I didn’t know about radicals, so I simply tried to remember kanji through other kanji, creating mnemonics by myself (and I must admit, my mnemonics weren’t nearly as good as those on TextFugu or WaniKani). I didn’t know about on’youmi and kun’youmi either. So I kept memorizing only one reading, which usually was kun’youmi. Thus, this attempt would have probably failed too, but one day something incredible happened. I was looking for new kanji on jisho.org, when I’ve suddenly come apon a reference to wanikani.com. “WaniKani? What’s that? Never heard about that” thought I and clicked on the link. And then… It was as if someone who tried to invent a bycicle suddenly saw a spaceship. I saw the perfect version of the method I was trying to create for myself to learn kanji. Needless to say, I didn’t even wait for level 3 to subscribe. After learning kanji for awhile, I’ve found out that WaniKani is part of the Tofugu project. And that’s how I found out about TextFugu. First few pages were enough to see that it’s exactly what I’ve been looking for for so many years.
So here I am. I am currently in the middle of season five at TextFugu and level 7 at WaniKani.
Sorry, this post became quite long and sentimental (I’ve already mentioned, that I’m not good at writing at forums). I promise to do my best not to become a burden to anyone here.
よろしくおねがいします。

• This topic was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by  trunklayer.
• This topic was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by  trunklayer.
• This topic was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by  trunklayer.