My name is Marcus Bird, and I started this blog as a means to track the ups and downs of learning Japanese, but more correctly, this blog is an examination in understanding language study hurdles and efficiency methods.
I realized I needed to make this clear because the genesis of my language study came from observing an increase in my language comprehension skills without active study. It was after noticing this that I took more of an interest in the idea of Japanese, and slowly developed the belief in actual language acquisition. I also had issues with extremely high levels of self-perception-based frustration, which I have also analyzed a lot here when I refer to things like your “emotional homeostasis” and “motivation hurdles”. So this blog wasn’t started just to deconstruct the learning of Japanese, but to also deconstruct my perceptions of learning the language and any inherent limitations negative perceptions might hold as I move forward.
Japanese used to represent and impossibility to me relative to my perception of time. Because of the entry hurdle of learning different character sets, I felt that the idea of learning the language was pretty hard. But as i’ve experimented with different things, I see that not only can a person quickly progress in reading Japanese that would take years to learn, but they can also use strategic methods to understand native media and expose themself frequently to native content. So this blog can be a bit technical, but i’m examining things is extreme detail that certain types of learners might be interested in, so feel free to post comments and get a dialogue going.
– Marcus
Jamaican Learning Japanese 
Hiragana Times kicks off 2012 with new Glomaji Global Romaji Community website!
Learning to write Japanese can be seen as either a great challenge, or a huge headache, and students may become a little shy of expressing themselves on the page as a result. This is why we’ve launched the Glomaji Global Romaji Community, a webpage to promote the use of Glomaji, an easy to master form of Romaji that will get students of Japanese communicating immediately with native Japanese.
To promote this endeavor we’ve launched the Glomaji Humor caption contest. The person who comes up with the funniest caption in Japanese will win 5,000 yen and will get their comment published in Hiragana Times. It’s a great way to get students to think creatively in the language.
We’re also recruiting Glomaji Correspondents to help us promote the scheme. In return for their cooperation with the project, they’ll receive a free copy of Hiragana Times Digest (a collection of choice HT articles) for three months free of charge.
We’d love it if you could help us get the word out, so please contact me if you have any questions.
Warm regards
Felicity Hughes
Hiragana Times, assistant editor