LanguageLearning

Tl;dr - interest in the cultural exports got me wanting to learn, now I'm set on it out of sheer stubborness.

I realized at a pretty young age (elementary school level) that all my favorite games, cartoons, and goods happened to come from Japan. Wanted to learn the language then.

I backed off of obsession with the country in my middle years (in large part because I saw some other people maybe a little oddly fanatical). But meanwhile, realized through Spanish classes that I really enjoyed language learning. So I still had the goal to learn Japanese.

I never got very serious about it though. I even had the great opportunity to take classes in college, and kinda blew it off. Over the next several years I try stuff casually - finding video or grammar series online, going back to my college textbook, getting on Language apps like Memrise or Duolingo. But none of it stuck as a habit.

In the past few I finally got a little more serious, spending at least an hour most days across various activities. I've got real progress going, but it still feels slow.

At some point I'd have said I'm learning in hopes to live there, but by now I'm not. At some point I'd have said the learning is for travel - I do plan to travel there and use the language, but that doesn't feel like the goal. I just enjoy the learning for its own sake - the more I learn, the more material becomes comprehensible, the more I can learn. It makes a satisfying loop all to itself.