I thought I would respond to your post. I began “studying” Nihongo several years ago, even taking the JLPT4 at one point! I didn’t pass and lost interest in learning. Most recently, I discovered your site, Tofugu, And it has raised my interest again!

I’ve polished my knowledge of kana again, I’m using Textfugu and debating whether to purchase, and use my iPhone for lesson apps and drills. I hope to be able to afford Rosetta Stone again some day, because that was the most immersion I received when I first began to study.

Thank you for making Japanese Interesting again and funny!

Cheers,

Sean Cruz

Please feel free to comment below and tell us how you study your Japanese. How are you going to learn? How are you learning? What do you do to keep yourself accountable? Share your knowledge a little with the rest of the world.

I began to watch anime and knowing some words just for fun at the age of ten. I wasn’t really thinking about learning real japanese. But then I started searching for more and more stuff and I actually became to like the japanese culture :P Then I realised how much do I wanted to learn japanese and go to japan. I’m actually thinking about going to japan in three years from now (by the time that I finish my high school). Since I have the same problem that you have, I’m always looking for internet sites that teach you (I have a lot of them, but some are not that good or a bit confusing… And some are really really nice and easy to understand… And some aren’t that easy but makes you to study (and thats a good point) so… like I said I’m always searching… That way you’ll know what are the new sites and if you like them), Sites of language exchange to talk to japanese people, I try to think or to say what I’m going to do in japanese and translate lots of words (search by vocabulary). I also try to hear music / seeing programs and try to translate what they’re saying.

If everything goes right I’ll try to make my best to do the japanese language test to go to an japanese university. (I’ll study for how long it takes… 3 years, 5 years… I was going to say 10 years, but if I learn japanese in ten years I wont be able to enter the university, maybe… but yeah even though I’ll be studying even if it takes 10 or more!) If I went there and study there, my japanese would improve a lot. And just to think about living there its so great :3

Good luck for your learning japan-fan! :3 (Oh btw, I usually use google for searching… thats not a big secret… but it maybe will need some patience… because you can be searching ’till “50″ page if you are interested :) )