My history studying Japanese: In my case, I've always been a fan of Japanese Anime, and have been watching it for the better part of 40 years. Back around the later half of the 2010's (sometime between 2016 and 2018) I gave Duolingo a try with Japanese. I was excited at the prospect of actually making progress, but quickly realized that Duolingo wasn't the path I wanted to take. I made it my goal to learn the Hiragana, and slowly progressed to the point where I could write the chart from memory. Then I did the same with the Katakana. Have you ever been to Japan or if you have any aspirations to go: I was a little hesitant to commit to Kanji, but during my first trip to Japan I found it easier to start to learn it from immersion. At the time I had enrolled in my first formal Japanese course at a local community college, but I was unimpressed by it, and decided to just spend more time in Japan instead. It's funny because I've spent quite a bit of time traveling to other countries. However I was always a little intimidated about traveling to Japan. During the pandemic, when it was no longer an option, I resolved to improve my understanding of the Japanese language, and finally take the leap. I'm very glad that I did, and I'm very glad that I put forth so much effort to prepare ahead of time. I'm looking forward to the future where I can meet other people who follow the Nekokana lifestyle when they take their first trips to Japan, whether it be in person or virtually. Any interests or hobbies that you have outside of Japanese related things: When I'm not studying Japanese, you'll usually find me in the Gym. I enjoy a good party from time to time. As you can see from my profile pict, I enjoy both cats and gaming. I spend a lot of time with my four cats, but not so much time playing Magic: The Gathering. Most of my gaming is online, and my current game of choice is Path of Exile. I look forward to getting to know all of you, and have enjoyed sharing a little bit of myself!

Very excited to announce that both the "Start Here" course and the Hiragana course are now up and running!