Hi everyone! Всем привет!

I'm Vadim, 25 y.o. from a cold and tough country Russia. I ran accidentally into this forum today and decided to join in a search for folks to talk to. Since I recently got extremely interested in the Japanese culture and the Japanese language, those interested in a cultural or language exchange are preferable. But I'm a friendly person in general, so, basically, everyone is welcome.

Hope y'all have a great day!

Welcome aboard, @Vadim !

Glad you found us Vadim ! Many very nice people here on JREF.

thomas said:

Welcome aboard, @Vadim !

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot!

Uncle Frank said:

Glad you found us Vadim ! Many very nice people here on JREF.

Click to expand...

Likewise!
So where do I start?

Vadim said:

Likewise!
So where do I start?

Click to expand...

Start by introducing yourself and tell us how and why you got interested in Japanese culture. If you have any questions, post to your heart's content.

Yeah, right!

So, I think I became interested in Japan and its culture when I was around 16. It didn't start with anime, but with some myths and old stories I read. I remember my dad giving me a very beautiful book with translated haiku and nice pictures... So I kept reading some information and stories, but never tried to study Japanese for some reason. I even wrote a course paper on the Japanese subcultures while at university!

Maybe a year ago I met a guy who studied Japanese on his own, which motivated me to finally get to studying it. I was doing this for a while, but then got distracted with work and some other things and just recently got into it after hosting an awesome guy from Japan in Moscow, making some new friends and meeting a very nice girl in Moscow. Since then I'm slowly studying using different ways, but sometimes it's a bit hard to do it systematically. I hope I can make it though!

I was also wandering around the web in a search for different websites to meet some folks having the same interests and maybe some native speakers. Will I be able to do this on this forum? How can I know if anyone is planning his or her trip to Russia?

Vadim said:

Likewise!
So where do I start?

Click to expand...

I suggest you browse the forum a bit, get familiar with it's subsections. In doing so you may stumble upon some threads which you'd like to contribute or share your thoughts.
Take note of some useful sticky threads in Translations and Learning Japanese subsections.
If there is a specific topic you'd like to discuss, and you can't find similar threads via the forum's search function - feel free to start a new thread in a relevant subsection.

Abstain from necroposting though, since it is frowned upon around here. If a thread looks dead or concluded long time ago - it may be wise not to post further replies to it.
Aside from that just use common sense. The forum is quite liberal and even outright ridiculous opinions and controversial topics are allowed to be discussed, as long as they are held in accordance with the forum rules.

Lomaster said:

I suggest you browse the forum a bit, get familiar with it's subsections. In doing so you may stumble upon some threads which you'd like to contribute or share your thoughts.
Take note of some useful sticky threads in Translations and Learning Japanese subsections.
If there is a specific topic you'd like to discuss, and you can't find similar threads via the forum's search function - feel free to start a new thread in a relevant subsection.

Abstain from necroposting though, since it is frown upon around here. If a thread looks dead or concluded long time ago - it may be wise not to post further replies to it.
Aside from that just use common sense. The forum is quite liberal and even outright ridiculous opinions and controversial topics are allowed to be discussed, as long as they are held in accordance with the forum rules.

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot! I will!