I dedicate this blog to two people.

The first is my 6th grade Spanish teacher, Senorita Quimbay. When I started 6th grade I couldn’t speak a word, and she drilled Spanish into my brain. I loved the class. I loved copying my test mistakes twice to earn points. I loved conjugating Spanish verbs. I loved filling in the blanks in our textbook. She was the ruler by which I measured all future language teachers, and only a handful ever equaled her.

The other person is the 12-year-old me who miraculously absorbed Spanish. He always did Spanish homework first. If there was a vocabulary word he didn’t know on a test, he could sit there and, by concentrating, force the word to materialize. Maybe he never really learned to speak it that well, but he did love learning it.

I wish I could’ve started studying Japanese when I was 12, but unfortunately it had to wait until I was 19. By that time my brain had already partially calcified and become unable to learn Japanese to the extent that I could have learned Spanish. No longer able to quickly memorize lists of words or force vocab to appear, I am reduced to hard work and clever thinking. This blog is my thoughts on the Japanese language and learning Japanese.