Hello, All!

Hey everyone!

After a month long debate I finally decided to join this forum. Before that, let's start with a name. Of course, my username "Skandiluz" is just that, a username. Long story short, I used that same name for my online games. Skandiluz = scandalous (get it?). Most people prefer to shorten it and call me Skandi or Skandz, either is fine but my real name is Wayne and I'm 27. So whichever name you decide to use for me, I answer to them, aside from Lil' Wayne (shudder). Anyway, back to the story! So, I decided to join based on how friendly everyone here is and the amount of useful information there is. In high school, I went about Japanese the WRONG way, using the old swap em' out technique, which was not only terrible but they made no sense what-so-ever. Hey, I thought I knew what I was doing, lol. Last year I purchased the Genki book which every intention of diving in head first, but school took priority over that. Now that I have more free time and I'm getting settled in my career I figured I'd jump back into it, the right way. As of now, I know all of my kana (although I still get ﾆ箪 and ﾆ停? mixed up if I see them alone) and I've started getting my vocabulary down - based on Genki and with the help of Anki. I've only been back at it for about 2 months but the past week has been vocabulary. As of now I know 70~ words which is probably slow paced but I'm learning. I hope to get to know some of you guys better and point me in the right direction.

Welcome Wayne. Hopefully you will get all the help you need here; members and staff are super nice. I always felt reading the old posts here on Japanese would be better than any book a person could buy. Info here goes back over 10 years in old posts and probably holds the answers to any question a student of Japanese can have. Good luck in your learning and I hope you get to travel to Japan to make use of it in the future.

Uncle Frank

Thanks, UncleFrank

I actually plan on traveling to Okinawa this year because my sister (not blood related, but she's the closest thing I have) stays out there with her husband. I'm giving myself 2-3 more months of just regular vocabulary, understanding, and building my foundation before I start to studying for JLPT n5. It seems really fast paced but I'm also immersing myself with everything. My phone, my mac, my pc's and even my ps vita are all formatted for Japanese as the main language. I tend to read kana books (usually children books) even though I don't understand most of what I'm reading yet because of my lack of vocabulary, it's helping me to pick up my reading speed.

The US Navy sent me to Japan in 1970 (had no knowledge of Japanese at all). I still laugh at myself for saying Hi to all the Japanese I heard saying "hai" and thinking how friendly they all were to take the time to say "hai" to me. My other big shock was the "mamasans" on base that did the cleaning. My first day on base I was in the shower when the mamasan came in to clean and I almost broke my neck trying to get to my towel to cover up. It's been over 40 years since I was last in Japan , and I still have many wonderful memories of the country and it's people.

Uncle Frank

LoL! That's awesome. Haha. I'm really excited to go for my vacation. I'll decide afterwards if moving to Japan is going to be what I want to do or not, but regardless I'll continue learning it because I find it fascinating and rewarding.