Hi everyone! My name is Francisco, I’ve been a Tofugu visiter for quite some time, but only now decided to sign up. I’m 27 years old and I was born in Portugal, although I’ve been living in Brazil for the past 4 years. My interest in Japanese goes way back! I’ve always been extremely fond of Japanese culture, particularly its literature, cinema and music. One of my reasons for wanting to become fluent is to be able to read Murakami Haruki’s novels in the original (and who knows, perhaps some day, way down the road, becoming a translator).

I majored in Journalism in 2006, before moving to Brazil. But I always kept my passion for Literature and Japanese very much alive, so last year I decided to start another college degree, this time in Japanese Letters. I first studied the language in 2005, but I’ve been on and off constantly, so never made any significant progress. The college course has thankfully forced me to finally face the challenge and really commit myself, but it’s very focused on linguistic/grammar/academic theory aspects. So I need all the help I can get with learning many other things on my own! Hopefully, in the next 2 years I’ll manage to get a university scholarship to spend some time in Japan as part of an exchange program. That’s really my main goal!

Random Japan-related curiosities: as I said, I love literature, music and cinema, so I’m a big fan of Soseki, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Shiina Ringo, Asai Kenichi, UA, Takashi Miike, Ozu Yasujirō and Koreeda Hirokazu, among many many others. Oh, I also like soccer (a big Kashima Antlers supporter), baseball, puroresu and some anime/video games.

Nice to meet you! Lookig forward to interacting with you all!

• This topic was modified 13 years, 3 months ago by  Francisco.