I feel that I must add one thing to that earlier post about language learning: I didn’t put any effort into it. Sure in the first year I had to study pretty hard to keep up with the curriculum, but in retrospect even that just felt like a nuisance. I wasn’t actively learning vocab and I’d never sit down to memorize kanji if I didn’t absolutely have to. I just went with the flow and did what was necessary to get a pass grade.

On the other hand I know people who really care about Japanese as a language and were as fluent when they first came to Japan as I was after three years or so. The point is rather that even a slacker like me can pick up a language eventually. (It might be that translating loads and loads of stuff during my university years helped a bit.)

Just now I watched this TEDx presentation about learning languages quick. Chris Lonsdale claims you can become fluent in a second language in six months by following the principles he outlines in the presentation. To me it kinda feels like he’s just pointing out the obvious.

My memories from my high school days are quite limited, mostly just socializing and parties are what I can recall (and the occasional school event). I must admit I don’t remember anymore why or when exactly I started learning Japanese, but looking at the blog’s archives (currently offline) it must’ve been sometime in 2006.

I recall trying to write blogposts in Japanese, and just falling back to using Google Translate (and Babelfish) when I failed. Thing is, while I learned some words and basic grammar, I couldn’t make that next step forward, after which I could’ve said I know the language.