Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds

I haven't really made any public posts here as yet, but I'm getting settled now, so I think I ought to!  At some point, I will probably have to import my LJ over here, but I'm currently still exploring DW and I'll do the importing when I get a round tuit.

For those of you who know me over at LJ, you'll notice I have a different theme at DW -- there's no sign of Gondor anywhere, though I expect it will put in an appearance at some point.  ;-)  Maybe here, maybe in my fic journal -- linaewens_fic -- which is also still fledgling.  Probably both places, since that place is pretty ingrained by now!  But I'm still considering my options!

My current hobby is teaching myself Japanese, so my journal here is reflecting that.  I can truthfully say that anime and manga had something to do with my interest in Japanese originally, but it's gone way beyond that now.  My love for learning languages (I was a French/Spanish major in college and lived overseas for a time and learned Urdu from the ground up) has kicked in and I'm wanting to learn Japanese for itself now.  I've got a bit of an ear for it at this point, and that's making it much easier to study it on my own (with the help of some books I bought myself for my birthday back in June).  I'm really enjoying reading about Japanese grammar at the moment, if you can believe it!  I do like grammar -- I remember when I first started learning Urdu, it was just useful phrases and survival kind of stuff, but I was desperate for a book with grammar in it.  What a relief when we got to the grammar part, lol!

It will be interesting to see if learning Japanese has an affect on my Urdu.  I think I might confuse my Pakistani friends here in Chicago if I suddenly start speaking in Japanese -- which is a real possibility when adding a new language to the mix in my brain.  I currently can't speak hardly any French or Spanish, even though I can still read it and understand it to some extent -- when I open my mouth now, the only thing that comes out is Urdu, since it's the language I use the most.  I'll be content if I can just read and understand Japanese at this point.  I've always found that ability in reading and understanding come first anyway, and speaking ability follows slowly but surely, with practice.