Okay, so, I’m resurrecting this thread to try this thing again. This is my third time trying to learn the Japanese language. Learning Japanese is tough. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Especially if you are self teaching. You have to have an incredible amount of self-discipline in order to keep at the lessons day after day after day. When I was starting over again, the first lesson said that I should tell the people on this forum of the reasons why I decided to study Japanese. My first post above goes slightly into the reason, but my second attempt goes into detail of why I wish to be a Japanese translator. That second attempt goes as follows:

The reasons why I am learning Japanese are many in number. The most trivial of these is so I can watch a Japanese television show without the need to use subtitles. I am interested in more than a few Japanese shows and it would be wonderful to understand what they are saying unaided.

A more important reason is to one day have a profession in translating Japanese documents so as to lead me to a more stable and independent future. I also wish for success in life and this directly ties into my previously stated goal.

For me, success in life means to be able to bring a woman to a place of residence without any embarrassment. To that end, I wish to own my own place whether that be an apartment or a small house. To be able to afford such a place, I need a career that pays enough to allow myself to budget such a huge expenditure. To that end, the only job that I think will give me what I want and that I’m confident that I’d be good at, is translating for whatever entity I may find myself in.

But most importantly, I am trying to avoid failure. If I feel that I’m not bettering my life at a good enough pace, I will deem myself a failure and would be liable to end my own life. The best bet to avoid that ugly fate is to learn Japanese to get a job that pays well enough to own a house so I can bring a woman home to it so I can one night sleep with them and be considered truly successful.

And now in my third attempt, I came back to the same reasons, just stated in a slightly less offensive manner:

I have tried learning Japanese a few times now. But the reasons why I’ve tried learning it are always the same. I want to have a bountiful and successful life. Now everyone defines success differently. For me, a successful life is to have a job that pays well enough to afford a place of my own so that I might be able to bring a girl to without the embarrassment of living at home with my parents. To that end, I feel like I’ve exhausted my options and am left with only one career path that I have any hope of doing well at. That path is to become a Japanese translator. Now in order to become a Japanese translator, I first need to learn Japanese.

A secondary, and far less important reason is that I enjoy a lot of Japanese media. This includes anime, manga, and tokusatsu. It would be particularly neat to be able to understand what is being said without the need for subtitles, or to rely on someone translating it for me. As you can tell, not as important, but it is a second reason why learning Japanese would be useful in my life. But yes, these are the two reasons that I keep coming back to trying to learn the Japanese language.

I hope that the third time is the charm and that I am able to successfully complete this textbook. In the first attempt in 2013, I got to 2-stroke Kanji. In my second attempt in 2014, I was within sight of 5-stroke Radicals. I hope that in this third attempt in 2017, I am able to go further than I have ever gone before. Only time will tell, so onto the future and “未来え!”