I am Dmitry, 18, originally from Saint Petersburg in Russia but I’m studying (well, just going on to study) in London right now. I’m very interested in politics, I like photography and run a site about old Russian television. Quite a fan of fantasy and comedy, and let’s not lie, like myself a bit of anime. :)

As for why I want to learn Japanese the answer is quite simple really: I love the country and the culture, and one of my goals is to visit Japan for a long time, so knowing the language at least to an extent would really help me on my journey. I also met a couple of Japanese friends in school, so part of my goal is trying to communicate with them in their language – useful and fun. I’ve tried Rosetta Stone (and will probably keep on using it) but their method isn’t really great at giving you the long-term memory of all the phrases, and doesn’t teach you kanji – I’ll still probably use it sometimes for “immersion”, but a light-hearted guide to a language is near perfect, I gotta admit :)

Anyway, that’s enough about me. :P Nice to meet all of you. Here’s to a good beginning!..

Considering you already know English and Russian (I’m guessing), adding Japanese to that list of languages you know would be about the coolest combination you can get!

I personally think Rosetta Stone is only useful for vocab and even if it was a lot more useful than it actually is, I still don’t think it would be worth the outrageous price they charge for their product.

Good luck learning Japanese!

It will hopefully be the third language I’m sort of fluent in – the first two being of course Russian and English, but I also know a bit of German and Spanish, and somehow got an A in the first one, two year later I find myself unable to remember almost anything :)

To be honest, the price doesn’t matter so much if at the end I get to my goal, and let’s face it, trying out a few chapters already, it’s much more effective – already a massive thanks to Koichi. As for Rosetta Stone, don’t worry, let’s just say I didn’t have to pay ;) Totally legit here though and heck is it worth the price.

If I’m up for it (don’t really like to write long posts) I might do a learning blog online – right now it’s all in my paper pad. So, if you’re at all interested, keep an eye here :) That’s enough rambling from me now. :)

Hashi, the site is in Russian, but you can just put it through Google Translator – the URL is .