Hello Everyone!

My name is Frankie, I'm 18, a high school graduate preparing for college. I have never been to Japan (but really want to go). I came across this website a short while ago and have been lurking for a few days before I decided to join, this is a very nice website.

My obsession with Japanese culture started in the typical geeky manner, I attended an anime club in high school. Anime, videogames and Pocky were pretty much the extent of it... but after a while of reading subtitles with my cartoons I started to gain an appreciation for Japanese humor, mannerisms, and the language in particular. After unintentionally learning lots of nouns and phrases, I decided to teach myself Japanese.

I used PIMSLEUR to learn basic conversational Japanese, survival Japanese I guess, that worked very well. I spent a week or two teaching myself how to read and write Kana (Hiragana is second nature to me now, but sometimes I forget Katakana characters), and since then I have slowly been learning Kanji (memorized around 150 characters so far). I'm a member of the Morikami Museum here in South Florida. I recently took an 8-week course for Japanese there. I'm at the point of no return now...

I'm not getting ahead of myself, but maybe I could make a career out of this? Learning Japanese is a lot of fun, and I intend to take on another language once I'm a little further along. It would be great to make a living out of traveling and being multilingual.

Sorry for the long introduction, I tend to write too much.

I'm looking forward to meeting all of you.

welcome to the forum

Hello and welcome! Enjoy your stay!

Greetings from way over yonder ways, here, the Japan Alps !! I sit here and recall those days, back in late highschool and earlier college especially when I was very much into language learning. (not that I'm not now, but it was just so fresh, and full of vigor then.)

It sounds like you are doing very well with your Japanese; please do continue. I wish you all the luck. I think you will grow to enjoy the forum even more and more as time goes on. Oh, and by the way, I tend to be wordy too, so so sweat !!

Maybe we'll be able to meet over here under the ever inspiring look of these tall peaks. Until then, please do post when you can, and share and learn with all of us !! See you 'round !!

Thanks for the replies 窶堙昶?堙ｱ窶堙?

Mars Man said:

Greetings from way over yonder ways, here, the Japan Alps !! I sit here and recall those days, back in late highschool and earlier college especially when I was very much into language learning. (not that I'm not now, but it was just so fresh, and full of vigor then.)

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That's really cool, and only strengthens my resolve.

This interest is taken as a joke sometimes, did your peers ever think learning Japanese and wanting to go there was a phase too?

Mars Man said:

It sounds like you are doing very well with your Japanese; please do continue. I wish you all the luck.

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窶堋ｻ窶堋､ﾅｽv窶堋｢窶堋ｽ窶堋｢窶堋ｯ窶堙

窶堋ｶ窶堙｡ﾂ、 窶堋?窶堙ｨ窶堋ｪ窶堙??堋､窶堋ｲ窶堋ｴ窶堋｢窶堙懌?堋ｷ

Mars Man said:

I think you will grow to enjoy the forum even more and more as time goes on. Oh, and by the way, I tend to be wordy too, so so sweat !!

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I have to admit one factor that attracted me, I came a across a few posts from Japanese members here, supposedly to improve their English I guess. (Excuse me Hiroyuki, I was stalking you).

In that case I don't feel like a loser ﾅ?Oﾂ人 barging into someone else's culture. This is a real international community huh?

Mars Man said:

Maybe we'll be able to meet over here under the ever inspiring look of these tall peaks. Until then, please do post when you can, and share and learn with all of us !! See you 'round !!

Click to expand...

Honestly, when I go there it'll be 窶愬停?ｹﾅｾ! I know there is more to see than that, but the city is my thing, and I doubt I'll run out of things to do/see there.