Learning a language has rewritten the code of my brain

25 May, 2026

A few months ago I remarked to my partner that I keep encountering people who are traveling to Japan. I mentioned I’d love to do this someday. He mentioned that the traveling he has done was much more fun when he went to places where he knew the language. This also happened to be a time where I had sustained a habit of avoiding The Scrolling Things for long enough that I found myself with some free time I didn’t realize I possessed. This environment allowed a seed to be planted in my mind: what if I could learn a language?

Being the kind of guy that I am ¹, I am peripherally aware of the tools that tend to work for learning Japanese. Avoid Duolingo, find a Spaced Repetition System, try to build a habit. All things that I knew, but did not believe myself to be capable of doing. I’m not exactly sure what I thought I was incapable of doing. Perhaps just the effort itself. But on this day I allowed myself a blessing of neutrality and gave it a try.

Day one I learned a handful of hiragana. I didn’t feel like I was really “getting it” but I had enough confidence in the method to let that feeling sit. Over the next couple of days I slowly started to recognize the characters. It’s hard to describe the feeling this gave me. I was starting from zero, so I could truly see my mind learning. I could see that I knew things I knew I didn’t know the day before. This small feeling has rewritten the coding of my brain. From here another seed takes root: the cost is simply time.

The learning I experienced was not painful. It felt like it just happened to me. I spent a few mornings doing this, and gained the feeling of building a habit, another unfamiliar sensation. People have done the math on the number of hours to get to different levels of proficiency as defined by the JLPT , and given when I started, I could feasibly take the most basic exam the next time it is offered near me. Having spent so long mired under the fog of my own poor self esteem, it’s been a revelation to feel like I could set a goal and actually achieve it.

It feels almost silly to say so, but I kind of feel like I can do anything. (It still feels so bizarre to even consider that). I know that I’ve tilled this soil through years of therapy (and the associated hard work on myself), but it feels like I woke up one day with the world opened up to me. Now I find myself with the inclination to learn but not the direction, but that’s a post for another time.

Here are some tools that I have really enjoyed on this adventure:

• renshuu . This is a great all-in-one tool. I knew that there are all kind of apps to learn Japanese, but I wanted one place where I could just get started. I think this will appeal to the types of people on bearblog: it’s made by one person, no AI used. The free app version has been more that sufficient so far, but you can also subscribe (including a lifetime subscription ). Also, the discord community is fantastic.
• Wagotabi . This game has been a really great introduction to Japanese grammar. It feels like a very natural way to learn.