I absolutely LOVE Chihayafuru too! It’s also one of the reasons I decided to start learning Japanese again, although I haven’t been motivated to learn to play karuta.
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So far it’s been good - it dispelled quite a few confusions I had about grammar that I’d picked up from Duolingo - since I need to build a mental framework when I learn, I’d been forced to invent a load of rules in my head because Duolingo is essentially a guessing game for grammar understanding. (I don’t use Duolingo anymore because it became more hindrance than help - this is one of several contributing reasons for that)
I think Tae Kim is a useful companion to Bunpro, but it’s become a secondary source for me now for reading around points. I had seen others warn that some of the ideas it presents are strange (e.g. the “ga” particle), so I tried to read it with the idea that I was steering my grammar understanding in the right direction, rather than regarding it as a hard, fast, concrete source of truth. So far I think this attitude / approach has served me well with it.
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I started in high school way back in the 90s. In my freshman year, I had a choice between Japanese and French (the school wouldn’t let students take Spanish until their sophomore year for some weird reason). I thought Japanese would be more fun. Plus I had a Nintendo Power subscription. They had this short-lived column called the Epic Center centered on RPGs. Near the end, they just gave up and started covering games that weren’t getting localized, but I still really wanted to play them.
I ended up taking three years of high school Japanese, all from different teachers. Then I minored in the language in college. Frankly, all those years of school Japanese weren’t nearly as useful as studying on my own since I graduated. If I could do it over again, I’d have spent a lot more time working with the professors during their office hours. I should’ve built more friendships with exchange students as well, but at my school, they were extremely insular (which, I admit, makes sense from their perspective).
Yeah, I feel strongly that Duolingo is actually quite Eurocentric. Its ideas of what language is and how to study it get less and less useful the further the language is from the Romance/Germanic languages that it was obviously built around.
I’ve seen Tae Kim get a lot of flack over the years, but I like his explanations. They’re clear, linear, and concise. So many resources (including Bunpro—sorry!) get wrapped up in exceptions and nuances when it’s too soon for learners to worry about that sort of thing.
The longer I teach, the clearer it’s become to me that EILI5 is the gold standard of lesson plans. I like that Tae Kim starts with the 5-year-old explanation and then threads in the warnings once the basic lesson is established.
Believe it or not, that’s the same motivation I’ve had since I started learning Japanese about 25 years ago! I’m taking Unity classes on Udemy and that’s been really helpful in building my confidence with coding. I could recommend some if you’re interested!
My advice to you (which I really should be taking): start with “gray box” games. Use Spriters’ Resource or Models Resource for temporary assets, get your game design coded, then deal with (or throw money at) the music and sprites/models/art once you feel good about the game itself. What held me back for so many years was that I wanted to code the game exactly as I was “playing” it in my mind, then the fear would hold me back. Don’t make the same mistake I did and let perfectionism hold you back for most of your life.
To tie this back to Japanese… 案ずるより産むが易し！
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Thanks for the offer, I’d dig some resources if you have the time! I actually made the entirety of the first Pokemon game using Unreal and C++ back in, I think, 2014 and 2015. It was quite a crazy thing to do looking back at it. Of course the first thing I did was remove the trade evolutions and added the version exclusive Pokemon in. 
I was thinking of starting my own small projects using Unity, as C++ was, quite frankly, painful to use as my first programming language. C# seems pretty simple in comparison! The only thing really stopping me is lack of artistic skill, as that’s one thing I’d like to really focus on at some point in my life. The Pokemon project involved me going pixel by pixel, line by line copying existing sprites into Photoshop, just to say I did it from scratch.
In the last six months, I made a few board games, with zero art, that I was considering translating into video games, or making them more complex in ways that don’t work well in board games. But I don’t do well from fragmenting my focus. So all of my spare time is entirely on Japanese haha.
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Sorry for being a little vague before - to try and be more precise, I do feel it’s lead me in the right direction and been a good resource - I think I’ve been a little tentative about saying that too strongly because I am still too early in the journey to really assess it properly - hopefully in a couple of years time I can say good things about it with more feeling of authority 
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Tae Kim is one of the main reasons why I was able to move to a more advanced class when I applied to study for evening classes at one college years ago. I think its a great introduction to Japanese grammar.
Mate, thanks for writing that story. I can really relate with some parts. This year I am hoping to make a few very small complete games just for fun using C++
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For me I never watched a whole lot of anime but I would enjoy buying Manga. Of course, the manga was in english but i knew they game from japan. I like art a lot so being able to look at the art in the books was always so cool to me, i’d spend hours trying to copy certain manga drawings I really liked.
Now that i’m older i get to appreciate other things about Japan. its not a perfect place but I want to see it eventually, as a tourist and to maybe even live there. I love learning and for me picking up japanese is a way to stay motivated while I wait for an opportunity to really get to see what japan is like. I’m sure some things will be different when what i expect but i think learning japanese also teaches me that i need to learn a lot in order to get a good grasp on how things work. Even if i’ll run into culture shock no matter what, i can at least try to make it as minimal as i possibly can. or at least keep myself from making any big mistakes.
And even if i don’t formally move to japan i think it would be cool to make some friends overseas, just because I can. I like talking to people and obviously knowing some Japanese helps with that.
My dream would be to live in japan making video games, but doing some other kinda thing over there would be cool too, I know that video games are pretty hard to get into sometimes.
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Mine’s a bit personal and very stop-and-start, haha.
I “started” over a decade and a half ago, first because I was into stuff like J-pop, and then eventually because I was dating someone. But I honestly didn’t get very far - I picked up a little Kansaiben, I learnt hiragana and katakana and a few basic kanji, but I barely even scratched the surface. I stopped learning for a good few years after my partner and his dad - my main conversation partners - passed away, and had the occasional brushes with Japanese until I gave up on it again. I didn’t really see much point in it any more, even if I still enjoyed stuff like J-pop, video games and the very occasional anime.
I picked Wanikani up again in 2017 after I got into enka in a big way and swiftly realised that whilst I could coast in Johnny’s fandom without Japanese due to the wealth of fansubs, I couldn’t exactly do that with enka. I was still very slowly learning and it wasn’t a big focus, but I would say that was the beginning of me properly starting to learn.
Then I got a teaching job here in 2019, ramped up the studying a bit more out of sheer necessity, and I’d say from 2020 onwards is when I really started to actually make some progress. Though I had the basics down upon landing here, it wasn’t until a year or so later where I started to actually be able to hanker down and commit to learning.
I’m really enjoying learning again - I can read about things I’m interested in, I can play games and watch shows, communicate with people albeit clumsily… I’d say the vast majority of my learning now comes from consuming native content, and Bunpro is the supplement to that. I honestly just think I needed the time away from learning when it wasn’t bringing me much, and finding a new reason to get properly involved again helped a lot.
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I read an online article about the Japanese writing system in March 2018. It sounded complicated, but also intriguing. I had previously dabbled with French on DuoLingo and found it stimulating, so I decided to try out Japanese on the same platform.
It was nothing serious, just 5 minutes a day learning hiragana and a few words.
DuoLingo has nailed the gamification aspect, but I didn’t like the actual content that much, so I looked around for other ressources.
I took a short tourist course in Japanese in the fall. It was very fun, so I decided to learn Japanese as a new hobby. I was 45 at the time. I wasn’t that interested in speaking Japanese or watching Japanese content, so I decided to focus on understanding written Japanese.
I began using WaniKani. For me the best thing about it is that there is a clear path forward: do some lessons, keep doing reviews until they stick. Everything is curated, I don’t have to consider what is relevant, etc. As for actually learning kanji, I am not sure whether WaniKani is a crutch or very good tool, but as a hobby it worked very well.
I like BunPro for the same reasons. I am just taking the lessons in order, a few lessons a week and doing my reviews each day.
My goals for 2022 is go through N3 on BunPro and maybe attempt JLPT N3 at the end of the year, just for fun.
I will also try to get a few Japanese pen pals.
My long term goal is to attend the International Congress of Actuaries in Tokyo in 2026. The congress is held every four years, so it would be a good chance to mix some business and pleasure.
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I’ve completed Wanikani and I’m pretty confident in the ~2100 kanji it teaches, so I’d say for me (and a lot of others) it has worked very well. I almost never encounter unknown kanji now (and when I do, I find it easy to learn them with Anki now), so these days my problems are just vocab and grammar. (and the speed of talking / listening comprehension for audio)
My goals have always been to be able to understand games/anime/manga/books/movies in the original Japanese as well. Though the further I progressed, the more the language itself started to motivate me. It’s just so fascinating and different from western languages.
Roman(ce) languages are quite similar in many ways, and after having learned German, English, Latin and French, while every language is unique and hard, it’s not as interesting as Japanese. (Russian would also be intriguing)
Still, games are probably what I’m most looking forward to applying myself to. I’m currently playing the original Final Fantasy 7 and having a great time. It took me 45 hours to finish disc 1 of 4, since my pace is often still quite slow and I’m creating Anki flashcards from vocabulary, but it’s very fun and rewarding 
I recently finished my first game in Japanese, Grandia 2. It was great, and easier because I had played it in English before.
I also started my first book, 人間失格 (“No Longer Human”) by Osamu Dazai, but it’s a bit on hold. Not because it’s too hard, even though it is and my pace is turtle-like, but because I want to prepare for JLPT N2 and I feel like a lot of what I learn from the book is too advanced and irrelevant there, and it would mean too many flashcards to make currently. But I loved the book and can’t wait to finish it in Japanese.
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I kinda started learning japanese on a whim last December during my christmas holiday.
The Google App Store advertised a japanese learning app (Kawaii Nihongo) to me and I just downloaded it and tried learning japanese. (Kawaii Nihongo is quite ok, but things don’t stick and it is uncomplete, so it is more of a feel-good app)
I hopped around several apps, until I decided to give Wanikani and later Bunpro a try. Now I am considering paying for kitsun as well, as I seriously need some more Vocab training and Anki is not working for me.
Of course I’ve been a huge Fan of japanese Media in general, so I still hope to someday be able to consume games and anime in its original language.
Right now its going ok, I made progress in my first year of learning japanese, so I understand some simple sentences every now and then. Playing or watching in japanese only is still a long way ahead though. I tried it with FUGA after my first playthrough in english, but it was way to stressful an my current level.
I also bought some japanese retro games that were either to expensive to get in a localized version or were japan exclusive to keep me motivated. (Baten Kaitos 2, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Nintendo Puzzle Collection, all GameCube Games)
I still need to buy the japanese console though. (Gamecube or Wii, prolly Wii, so I can get Captain Rainbow and other JP Exclusives as well)
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@Wippo Japan exclusives are very motivating indeed! One of my near-future projects is Tokimeki Memorial, which Tim Rogers aka ActionButton made a huge video about.
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I am in the midst of watching the Action Button Video (little by little) and now I wanna play it too.
I feel a bit ashamed that I have not heard of this game before, as it seams to have left quite the mark on the videogame landscape.
Edit: I finished the video (skipped the let’s plays) by now and I think I’ll keep an eye out for the PS1 Version.
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In short, I started learning Japanese (Kanji and grammar), because I moved to Japan!
Initially I was planning on spending perhaps a year or two here, then move back to my home country; however I happened to meet my now wife and mother of our son.
Originally I had a fleeting interest in Japan and it’ culture etc. I began watching YouTubers in Japan (I can’t remember how or why I started?), this grew my interest in the country. Then I taught myself how to read Hiragana and Katakana. I also accidentally was introduced to anime via another YouTube channel. Intrigued, I dabbled in popular anime shows and enjoyed them enough to move onto less mainstream anime. I still watch the occasional show, when I have some ‘rare’ spare time.
Anyway, learning Japanese is now a necessity for me really. Hard work, but must be done!
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Back then in 2013 I started liking Japanese boyband Arashi and their variety shows. It was so hard to get their subbed variety show unlike korean variety. It motivated me to learn Japanese so I could understand their show without sub.
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Mi history with Japanese goes back to when I was 12-13 (I am 19). There’s no specific reason to why I decided to learn Japanese, I was starting to get into anime and was interested in the culture and all that, so I started learning the lenguage without much thought. Of course I wasn’t aware of the huge variety of resources online (and English isn’t my first language so by that time the options were very limited). I learned kana and started Minna no Nihongo but eventually lost all motivation.
One day I came across Heisig’s RTK and discovered Anki. Once I had finished 80-90% of the book (which took me a lot more time than it should have due to my lack of consistency) I stopped doing reviews and during the first coronavirus lockdown I did Genki I and started grinding vocabulary (because I had studied RTK, it was then when Japanese words and the way they are formed started to make sense to me).
Later on that year I discovered Cure Dolly’s videos and fell in love with the way she explained Japanese grammar structure. My Japanese comprehension level skyrocketed just by watching her videos. Last year I just kept doing reviews in Anki, and a few months ago I came across the Matt vs. Japan Youtube channel, started to get serious with inmersion and also learned about this website, which has been pretty useful so far.
My long-term goal is to be as close as native fluency as possible. I am planning to apply for a scholarship to do my master’s degree in Japan when I finish university (although I am unlikely to get it), and I’d like to live in Japan for a few years.
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As a fan of Johnny’s from the mid-00s, I was absolutely shocked by the amount of K-pop stuff just freely accessible online, even back then.
“You mean this is just on YouTube and not hidden between layers of locked LJ communities?!”
Now that JE is minimally online (such as Arashi being on Spotify), I’m still not used to it!
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This sounds almost exactly like me. I started studying Japanese in around August of 2018. I had just moved back to Australia from Sweden, after learning Swedish in about 6 months (so similar to English that I think a really determined person could do it in less). This was my first experience with language learning, and lo and behold, I loved it.
For me, learning Swedish opened the doors for other languages, as I was always under the impression that I wasn’t smart enough to learn a language. With the newfound confidence I had from that, I decided to try Japanese, having been a massive fan of Japanese games (especially RPG’s) my entire life. The thought of playing them in the way they were intended was a hugeeee source of motivation.
I was lucky enough to meet my now partner, Haruna, only a few weeks after I started studying. Her help and encouragement just gave me even more reasons to focus. About a year and a half after I started studying, I was very slowly reading books, and started to gain a huge interest in kanji, including its history in regard to Japanese.
From then, kanji, playing RPG’s in Japanese, reading, (and now working at Bunpro) has made up my day to day life. The absolute biggest incentive for me at the moment though is to become the best teacher I possibly can be, as I strongly believe that facilitating personal growth in other people is the most rewarding thing I could do with my life.
… Oh and I also immerse a lot . Usually just listening to anime while I work hahah.
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Wow, you really just started in 2018? I’ve been studying…a considerably longer time period. Maybe I need to immerse more. It’s very hard for me to do so while I’m working, even though it is very possible. But in these past few years I’ve probably averaged about an hour of study per day and maybe 1 hour of immersion per day. I guess you really do get out of it whatever you put in. I have been better about it recently though.
It’s nice to be reminded that there is no secret to it, just a lot of input and dedication. Well…tools like Bunpro also help quite a bit.
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Definitely no secret to it. Learning is calculated in hours invested, not years. Let’s hope that tools like Bunpro continue to reduce the load of investment required though 
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