Ha ha! I love that! "Nerd alerts"!
I was such a nerd, I had to escape to
Japan (the Nerds' Paradise? Hmmm...) 
at the age of 24 and I haven't been back to live in Canada
since!
Yeah, we still got a little snow on the ground too, but from the looks of things, I bet
(or is that I hope?) it'll be gone soon, and I'll be able to ride my bike a little
faster...
Y'know, seriously though, I always had this Attraction to the Orient and to Kanji. (Yes that's what they call them in Chinese
(Mandarin/Peking Chinese/PuTongHua) too, it's just that they pronounce the characters æ¼¢å— as HanZi!
)
So I never found it difficult to study them, the more difficult they are, the more
fun they are, if you know what I mean...
On the other hand, even though I know maybe 2000 kanji or so, I still am
totally illiterate in the only-40-or-so Korean Hangul letters: just never really
wanted to learn them!
And no, I don't think the fact that my wife goes gaga over this Korean actor, Bae YongJoon has anything to do with it! 
Okay, okay, it might have a little to do with it... 
I just dived into the kind of books I loved to read; just went to bookstores (used and new) and checked out the books until I could read. I always loved books, in English and in French too, so I think that may have worked greatly to my advantage when it came to just curling up with good books in Japanese too.
I keep my Japanese and Chinese books downstairs and my English and French ones upstairs, so because I'm so lazy, it's a lot easier to just reach out my hand and take down an interesting-looking Japanese or Chinese book, than to go all the way upstairs to get an English or French one!
But I've always believed in a desire-based, enjoyment-based learning. When it's not fun, I let it rest for a while and then go back to studying when the desire comes back (which is usually pretty soon!)
As you can see, I like long letters!
Stay warm up there,
Ian
---
Live, Love, Learn, Laugh...
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