kami

I think what would help most is getting more members. It's unfortunate that VPL is stil closed down, as it would make it much easier to contact the users over there and inform them of this alternative. But #1 would be completely solved with more members, and #2 can happen more over time. (Contests and rewards aren't really fun if there isn't anyone participating.)

I already know Hiragana and Katakana, learned those yeeaaarrss ago, haha. You kind of need to learn those first to do anything anyway It's like learning the ABCs for English. You can't read anything if you don't know the alphabet. Working on kanji with WaniKani. (It's an online kanji teaching tool.) I'm currently in the 200s for kanji known on WaniKani, though I know more, as it teaches in a specific order, so some of the ones I haven't hit yet I already know.

Awesome Thanks for making it ^^

This is such a cool thing I love seeing people take advantage of their positions for philanthropy. That's something I'd love to be able to do one day.

These little adoptables are cute A fun idea for the forum. Though I'd probably make a thread about how to get started with them, since I kind of had to jump around for a few minutes to get the information.

It's a very interesting one! Crazy how different it is from English, but I like it a lot better than other Western languages, mostly due to the lack of gendered forms. (I tried learning German in the past, and off/on Russian, and it's just so random most of the time with what words are fem/mas/neut x'D Japanese seems to have a more consistent structure.) That's really cool of your ex, props to her! And thanks ^^ That's really cool! I'm mostly focusing on reading/writing first, then listening, and saving the hardest for last---speaking, haha. I'm eager to take another trip to Japan though once I've gotten better at it. I don't blame you for feeling lost, it's a tricky language. Argueably the hardest for native English speakers to learn.

I'm not in college anymore, but most of the time I just study or research things on my own anyway, even when I was in college. Currently I'm going pretty hard core in Japanese. I took several courses in college, but I didn't stick with it and it just wasn't a great time for me. I've gotten newfound motivation this year and have been studying every day, I'm pretty proud of myself

I don't typically have time for contests, sorry!

Singsong pretty much said it. If you post something on the internet, someone is bound to do something with it, regardless of how many measures you take to protect yourself. It's unfortunate, but unavoidable. Also, you might want to look into DMCAs in case you find someone posting your work elsewhere without your permission. With a properly filled out DMCA (not just clicking the "report" button, this is different), companies tend to take those more seriously than normal finger pointing. It also gives you the chance to provide proof of ownership to the company in question.