I am a lay ordained Zen Buddhist, and after years of studying zen writings translated by others, I started to really want to read what members of my Dharma family have written in their own words.
I’m also really excited about learning a language that is so different from my own. I’ve already learned French and Spanish, which arose from the same root language. Japanese is a totally different and fascinating experience.
Have you been to Aselia Con in Dallas by any chance? I know someone who performs there with his daughter every year. They love the Tales series and play the songs as guitar duets.
I haven’t, but I’ve certainly heard of it. It’s a shame because I live in Illinois, so it’s quite a bit of traveling and considering I’m not very familiar with Texas or really know anyone, I’d probably be a little too uncomfortable to go by myself. Perhaps someday though.
That aside, that’s really awesome they do performances there. =)
I’ve been on and off with Japanese for most of my life. My two best friends in primary school were both children of Japanese immigrants and because my parents both worked I spent a lot of time with their parents. As much as it’s not my culture by blood, I think that having most of my experience from a young age in a community setting being a Japanese community setting shaped what I found homely. I first started learning Japanese formally (i.e. not just picking up a few words and phrases my friends and their parents taught me) in grade 6, but I dropped it part way through grade 8 since starting secondary I went to a different school than my previous friends and I was in a new friend group that left me away from the Japanese community. It began to be offered in my high school in grade 11 so I decided to pick it back up again, but only as an audit class during my free block, and not as a graded course. I just finished my first year of university and because it was in a community far less diverse (more white) than where I grew up, I noticed that a lot of the things I missed about home were from my Japanese friends and their traditions, so over the summer I decided to start working on Japanese again, mostly trying to regain some of what I lost, and see if it can provide a window to a place where I can feel more at home.
pokemon pretty much, fav game series of all time and the influence of japanese culture in the games are admirable.
I have been to Japan and I found people are really great at each other, so helpful, well disciplined. I think they have found a really good way to life. After returning from Japan, I just really got interested to know more about them being so distinctive and their unconditional contribution towards nation. Then I started learning Japanese to know them better, to get connected and of course to be there soon again for a long time 
Cheers…!!
Honestly just wanted to see if I could because it looked difficult. I was able to recognize the character の from a video and wanted to see if I could learn any other characters. Learned hiragana and katakana on my own using the internet, then found classes at my school. I was never interested in anime or anything before learning Japanese.
It was a big difference for me because I never had to make flash cards or study when I learned Spanish… I was also taking my senior-level college Spanish courses while taking beginning Japanese courses so sometimes the languages would mix together lol! Called it Spanese.
I was always fascinated by anime, manga, light novel and such, but the reason for starting to learn Japanese, was the lack of translation of some novel, I was interested in.
For example the visual novel called: Mahōtsukai no Yoru (a type-moon VN) and the light novel Yuusha, Aruiwa Bakemono to Yobareta Shoujo (from the author of The Girl Who Ate a Death God , The Girl Who Bore the Flame Ring and such).
It might sound silly, but when somebody wrote on a bulletin board, that he is going to learn Japanese faster than the translation progresses, to which many of the users positively replied to,
I mindlessly thought (it happens)- I can do that too!
I initially wanted a second foreign language to my humble English and ended up trying Italian, french and Russian, which all kind of are boring, I guess. At the end Japanese provided enough “peculiarness” that my interest did not cease and it added value because of my hobbies.
In addition to that I already bought some quite advanced light novel in Japanese, I look forward to read to, so there is literally no escape ;D
I really wanted to read White Album 2
I had learned some German in school, which aside from some grammar quirks, is fairly easy for English speakers to grasp. I’d always been really interested in Japan and its culture, and not to mention the language is considered one of the hardest for English speakers to learn. One morning I literally said to myself “why not”, and here I am.
A mixture of history, anime, light novels, and simply wanting to learn another language on top of English and German. Plus I kind of want to teach English in Japan one day.
I used to live in Tokyo as a kid, then we moved to America. Because we spoke english at home, I didn’t have a reason to keep practicing, but my middle school friend group’s interest in anime got me restarted. I’m glad I had the 一年生 base of katakana, hiragana, and some basic kanji, along with a lot of vocabulary I miraculously hadn’t forgotten to keep me motivated in learning.
Living in Portland OR (large Japanese community here) and studying ikebana with my Japanese sensei and other Japanese classmates and friends whose English wasn’t perfect made me want to learn some. I like puzzles and it is a poetic puzzle for me.
Now that I am teaching ikebana with my own Japanese students my ultimate goal is to be able to read some of the untranslated textbooks.
My secret wish is to be able to read Japanese women’s magazines for the fashion and cuteness though!
I’m lucky to live in a country where there are 4 official languages (not counting English), which means I have a good grasp on learning and understanding different languages. I’m also a stereotypical nerd so the possibility of reading manga in japanese, watching anime without subtitles and playing games in japanese is a huge motivating factor.
Also, it looks impressive on a resume, even if it isn’t particularly useful.
日本語はたのしい！
… not if you want to pick up girls, then they’re extremely useful languages! 
And have you? Was it any good? It’s one of the VNs that I want to read the most. My language skills are still far from good enough for that, but someday…
I knew hardly anything about Japan, Japanese culture or the language a year ago. I actually started off learning Mandarin because I’m interested in martial arts and Chinese tea, after a couple of months is was getting hard and I needed a break. So I thought I’d try a Japanese language course instead (Michel Thomas method audio CDs in the car) and I got hooked. I don’t know why but Japanese seems to make more sense to my brain than Mandarin and I actually enjoy learning Japanese whereas Mandarin feels… like a chore.
Now the more I learn about Japan, the more I realise I don’t know. I love the challenge and the new knowledge that the studying brings.
I was also initially under the impression that “Japanese is just a subset of Chinese because there’s less kanji”. Wow talk about naiveté. I thought I could learn Japanese and that would make Mandarin easier… 
I have gotten lot of book on Japanese textile art and technique. Although the diagram and picture make it fairly easy to understand the technique .
I wanted to learn Japanese as It will allow me to learn faster and in the correct way.
Moreover, I like learning languages and I have an interest in linguistic so I thought let’s start with Japanese.
I started by learning some Kana with Tofugu and thought well if I can do this then maybe I can do more … .
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