I wanted to share what keeps me coming back everyday to do reviews and keep studying Japanese. My real motivation. What’s your reason/motivation? What prevents you from giving up?
Below is a book by Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, called The Journey of Shuna(シュナの旅), that I purchased from Amazon. It’s a gorgeous book made entirely with water colors and smooth paper. Perfect presentation. It’s a little above my current level, but that fact alone is enough to keep me motivated, and not frustrated at all.
I know that if I keep studying everyday, I will get good. Time and exposure are fundamental to reach fluency, and I know that if I gave up, I would regret it someday. So, I keep going, not looking back (well, I do have to look back at what I’ve learned and review it ) and with that prize in front of me, which I will soon be able to read and thoroughly enjoy.
I also have the entire collection of Yotsuba&, which I’ve been reading and really enjoying, and Death Note. I also have Chi’s Sweet Home and Detective Conan, but only one each so far. Still need to get more and build my Manga collection . Let me know your stories.
I’ve gotten to a lower-intermediate level of Japanese studies a bunch of times, then dropped out for different reason. I want to push past that point and get to where I’m actually competent.
I’m working WK at full speed, along with my grammar studies. I’m purposely doing slightly more than I think I can handle because I want to blast through the wall that kept stopping me before.
I’ve gotten to a lower-intermediate level of Japanese studies a bunch of times, then dropped out for different reason. I want to push past that point and get to where I’m actually competent.
Same here. Although I am only doing Wanikani. I hope to get through by not getting overwhelmed or distracted by other things. Going full power in Wanikani, though … gotta get far before I run out of steam … …
@Gabirlmpf I have the same book by Ghibli at home. It’s beautiful.
I’m just here to keep my reviews from piling up. Learning kanji has been such a monumental task that I can only do it for its own sake. There’s no book or game I’m going to read that will make hundreds of hours of study worth it.
I’ve been doing that as well, but this is my first time learning. I figure that even if I study more than I think I can handle, I know I’m moving forward. I still haven’t fully nailed all N4 grammar, but I’ve already started going through N3 level at BunPro. My strategy is to make a first sweep at new grammar, and then review it multiple times through different resources and doing quizzes, etc. Only looking forward
Before I left Japan, I wanted to make sure that I continued to learn and not give up. I bought a couple manga with furigana with original intent that I would crawl through them. Now I changed that to make them my goal to easily read. Honestly, sometimes Japanese is a hassle, but it can sometimes feel like one of the only stable things in life. If I gave up on it, I don’t know what standard I would have to hold myself to. So I come back everyday, so some day, I can tell people that I worked though something for a long period of time and was able to make considerable progress (hopefully).
What a coincidence, I started watching a J-Drama yesterday with him (well, not with him. Featuring him, haha), called Dokushin Kizoku. But my reason for watching it is the beautiful Keiko Kitagawa
For me it’s simple, I like the Japanese language so much that I want to be able to communicate with the Japanese people and that I want to respect the language by making the effort to learn it because i want to vist Japan a lot and it’s kinda cool to know all the meanings of Kanji and kind of showing off just a bit
I am sorry to disappoint you. I looked through it, but my Japanese is/was not good enough to read it … also, it has been a while since I looked through it as well. I bought it when I was in Japan many, many years ago, I guess because I liked the artwork.
Talking about Ghibli, most of the movies Ghibli produces are just beautiful. I haven’t watched the recent ones, but most <= 2010. Whisper of the Heart is my favorite one. The calmest is probably Only Yesterday. Howl’s Moving Castle is great. Pom Poko is weird. Grave of the fireflies sad and beautiful.
It will sound silly but for me the main reason is the pleasure of going on NHK easy (for now) and being able to understand more and more. My level is low but with some grammar study and a lot of jisho i get to understand. I just imagine the day I will be able to understand all the news and read them easy, maybe without the dictionary. And decide to find another site to try my reading skills.
Just the pleasure in being able to understand and the proud feeling i get makes me come back here every day and thy to learn as much as I can.
) and with that prize in front of me, which I will soon be able to read and thoroughly enjoy.
. Let me know your stories.
… gotta get far before I run out of steam … 
…
