Side Step: How my interest in learning a language started

While I am interested in learning Japanese, I think it's also important to learn about the culture since, for me, that's where my interest in learning the language came from. My interest started from the most basic interest ever. Anime. Yes, although I find it albeit embarrassing to admit it, the fact that anime was the my spring board into getting interested in a culture is the all the more important. Due to the variety of genre's, I was able to get a feel of what was enjoyed upon by certain subculture group. Of course, anime is more or less equivalent to a a dramatic TV show so I couldn't take what I learned at face value. After all, you wouldn't take a movie, let's say Fast and the Furious as the face value for America's culture now would you?


While anime was all nice and great, there was the eventual longing to be able to understand it without using English captions, so I began to study the language, though I was bombarded by the lessons and different routes to take. It was only a passing interest so I stopped and hadn't looked back at it seriously til recently. I've always wanted to visit Japan, but I never had a strong will to do so. Occasionally, if I found something interesting I'd look it up on google with trivial amusement(e.i, Taiyoki, Dango, Kotatsu, Cat cafe's, etc.) but I had found a couple of blogs, namely TexanInTokyo and Tofogu, in the process who had me hours on end simply looking at their blog posts. I was captivated by either their experiences and/or cultural analysis of different sectors and areas in Japan.

Those two blogs, and many others, have given me a looking hole into the culture and inspired me to look further into the language. I was already ignited with motivation and began to try different learning methods since, in my opinion, the language was priority before I went deeper into looking at plane fees. Of course, I had brushed up on some history, notably Hiroshima and the Great Kanto Earthquake, but I didn't want to get too ahead of myself.

Either way, having the inspiration and motivation to dedicate yourself to a language is important as with a flimsy will, you could easily burn out. I think it's important to ask yourself why your doing this. It can be any reason at all as long as you want it and don't go through it halfheartedly.