I had been meaning to learn Japanese for a while. My wife is a native Japanese, and we met in college in the US, where we still live. I took one semester of Japanese, but never got the chance to continue with it.

This past January I took a company trip to Taiwan for about 2 weeks. Had a lot of fun, spent 4 hours at Tokyo Narita (airport), gawked at all the kanji around Taiwan, and heard a bit of Japanese on the airplanes, at the hotels, and from a couple of tour groups at one of the museums. So… I decided to give Japanese another shot when I got back.

Looked at Rosetta Stone, decided not to buy based on the price, found Koichi’s blog post on RS alternatives during a Google search, decided to give Textfugu a try, and just finished Season 2 yesterday.

My goals are to be able to speak Japanese with my wife, to be able to read books on Go strategy in Japanese, and to be able to converse with people at the hotels/airport for future trips to Taiwan, as well as to be able to understand kanji on the menus and in the streets and shops.

Use your wife to your advantage. I’d recommend telling her to keep you motivated and to make sure you’re doing your studying. Oh and I’m sure she’ll be able to correct you and help you with anything.

I’m just wondering though – are you learning Japanese so you’re able to understand the kanji in Taiwan? Wouldn’t it make more sense to learn Chinese?
I’m not trying to demotivate you in any way, I’m just curious and I don’t quite understand.

Good luck learning Japanese.

Welcome aboard….er, officially I guess.

よろしくお願いします

奥さんにもよるしく

EDIT:
^
Lol what, If I were to put it simply he just went to Taiwan for a little while and came back. During his visit, he heard Japanese being spoken which increased his interest to learn. “Gawked at kanji” gives me a O.O kind of feeling

Winter – the priority is to be able to speak to my wife, hence Japanese. I see her every day, trips to Taiwan will only be every 18 months. I also have two college friends who are in Japan, one permanently, one for a year, so I hear/read about their experiences, as well. Being able to recognize kanji while in Taiwan is really just a bonus, though being able to speak Japanese while on the trip might help at the airport and hotels (the hotels I stayed at both had staff who spoke Japanese, since they mostly have a foreign clientele).

My wife is very kind, correcting my pronunciation and answering questions I have about vocabulary or grammar, though half of the time I can’t understand the difference between my way of saying a word and hers. Hopefully I’ll improve with time.