Hello! I was drawn in to TextFugu by that 50% off deal earlier this month–and the promise that it’s “made for self-teachers”.

My attempts to learn Japanese mainly began because I wanted to read a series of novels called Saiunkoku Monogatari. I had loved the anime of it, but was disappointed that it ended before the story was complete, and I knew it was unlikely any publisher would license an English translation. That’s how it started, but now it’s grown beyond just my desire to read those books. I want to be able to read or watch whatever Japanese media I want, not dependent on US companies or fansubbers/scanlators. I want to be able to translate Japanese media myself and share it with other fans. I also want to live and work in Japan some day, at least for a time. I’ve applied to teach with the JET program next year, and even if I don’t get into that, I still plan to find a way to go there again (I went on a very short trip in 2001). Finally, I just want to be multilingual—it’s cool and people might be impressed by it. ;)

So far I’ve made several attempts to get a foot in the door with Japanese, starting in 2007 when I signed up for a non-college-credit, 8 week course at my local community college, which I didn’t really retain much from. I’ve also tried a number of books, online tools, and computer software, but again, I never seemed to be able to make much headway. I never felt like I retained more than about 20% of any of the material I covered–with the exception that I did make good progress learning hiragana and katakana. So while I’m not truly a beginner, I’m close enough to it that I thought it was a good idea to begin again at the beginning with a textbook designed for “self-teachers” like me. And already knowing hiragana was a bonus, because I was able to really catapult through the first season. Now I’m on season two and ready to get into it!

Joie