To clarify: it’s not a trial period as such, it’s just that most teachers offer shorter trial lessons as well. You still have to pay for these but they are a bit cheaper (price still depends on the teacher).
Also: you can not use more that three of these per account.
Speaking does seem like the best way to fix this to me.
I also don’t think I could force myself to just read random stuff every day if I’m not interested…
But I have been able to stick to reading at least 2 pages (set a manageable or even ridiculously low lower limit for yourself!) in a novel every day for 2 1/2 years.
I also think the various book clubs are great places to look for inspiration if you don’t know where to start!
Let’s Play videos (実況プレイ or just 実況 in Japanese) are just people playing video games while commenting.
A few channels I like are:
弟者 from the 2bro channel. Probably among the biggest. He’s got an awesome voice and a cheerful personality, and will sometimes treat you to quotes like 我がクロールに勝てまい！(when swimming from a guard dog)
LayerQ. He speaks pretty clearly. I used to think he was a bit bland but he did grow a bit on me.
Gongen. Plays a lot of NES/SNES games and I think he has a clear and endearing older guy voice.
ToiletPaper Gaming. Another older guy with a pleasant voice.
Afromask. Super clear and relaxed voice. Mostly plays simulator type games.
Toshizo. Nice if you want to practice listening to kansai-ben 
Here’s a super long list of particular let’s play series I personally like:
Honda playing Super Metroid
Naru playing Super Metroid
Blaze playing Metroid Zero Mission
弟者 playing Crypt of the Necrodancer . Commenting in sync with the beat
弟者 playing Machinarium . I find his speech to be the easiest to understand here.
弟者 playing Inside
弟者 playing Abe’s Oddyssee
弟者 playing Little Nightmares
弟者 playing SuperHot
Yumekaki no misogi playing Suikoden I
Gongen playing Super Metroid
Gongen playing Metal Gear
Gongen playing Zelda I
Gongen playing Megaman I
Maelstrom playing WoW
Afromask playing House Flipper
Afromask playing Minecraft
Afromask playing Subnautica
LayerQ playing Ori and the Blind Forest
LayerQ playing Inside
LayerQ playing Hollow Knight
R-Games playing FF7
Toshizo playing Undertale. Kansai-ben listening practice!
Toshizo playing Metroid Prime. More kansai-ben!
ToiletPaper Gaming playing Ori and the Blind Forest
ToiletPaper Gaming playing Megaman 1
ToiletPaper Gaming playing Megaman 2
ToiletPaper Gaming playing Portal 1
ToiletPaper Gaming playing Portal 2
EDIT: Oh, and sorry for derailing, but on the topic of Let’s Plays. @Naphthalene, you speak French right? And you like let’s plays? Did you know of this guy (fellow that goes by the name Noxferan le panda)?
I’ve been listening to him ever since even I started studying French, and for some reason I just love both his voice and character! (More and more the more I can actually understand him. Less so when he swears in English though)
This so much! You are talking about doing this mistake while actively doing it! Stop using WK and focus on doing something else for a change.
EDIT: Meant to reply @bomaran
I always ask and write it down in a small notebook I carry with me. I use a bunch of different colored pens and stickers so that looking back at it, it’s pretty, and I don’t feel visually worn out. Then, I take each week’s list and record myself reading them aloud, the Japanese word first, pause, then the English translation. I listen to a few of them each morning at random, and it helps a lot.
Also, Kamesame has been indispensable for me to be able to remember words from Wanikani that I could easily recognize on paper but might not immediately come to mind during conversation.
Dude, there is only so much you brain can hold through mnemonic neural highways or hard storage. If you don’t let that knowledge sink in through practice, building memories around it, pathways and shortcuts, you can try to learn more but it will just enter one ear and exit through the other.
Chill, enjoy your hard-gained knowledge and after some time you’ll be N1 without even really making the effort.
No idea what kamesame is but I just signed up for it.
Is it like kaniwani? I reset to level 1 already so I probably can’t even use it anyway. 
I felt burned kanji were def not properly memorized so I need to redo it all
Never heard of that person, actually 
On the French side, I’ve never watched much let’s play, since the one I knew of were kinda annoying. I’ve watched channels that are close to doing a let’s play, but are edited into a kind of review. My favorite channel for that is probably Jouer du grenier, although I’m not a fan of the style they’ve been going for in the past couple of years…
I don’t get the move you have done then.
So you went back to level 1 with the intention of going for level 60 again… but in a different way this time??
What problems you face when reading for example, listening, etc?
I think improving vocab, sentence mining, shadowing can be something that could add both variety and then be more motivating to do.
I wasn’t very tempted to sign up for lifetime in WK, the reuse value hits against exactly that what you were mentioning. The actual using and having the time (which WK as any SRS app sucks like crazy ).
In any case, I’m curious to hear what change in routine you come up with.
I think I’ve seen that one. But decided that my French wasn’t on the level yet
You can actually add any words from JMDict to your KameSame SRS queue, but there’s not a curriculum as such just yet
@bomaran I would say that Japanese people are just very polite and allow you to make mistakes rather than jump down your throat and correct them.
In my very limited experience, they are just happy that you are trying to learn. I told some Japanese customers of mine (I work in a grocery store) and their first reply was “sugoi.”
I wouldn’t be upset that they aren’t correcting you-- be happy that they respond this way and with a “gambatte kudasai.” afterwards.
Just my two cents. I think everything else has already been said.
A Japanese friend told me that once during a conference call with a foreign customer, the customer kept referring to her using the pronoun 貴様 (kisama) – while trying to be super polite (since 貴 means precious, esteem, honor + the sama honorable suffix). Of course kisama in modern Japanese is very rude.
She told me that she didn’t correct the customer (I think she didn’t want to embarrass the customer) – and that she appreciated that the customer was trying to be nice. She did say she tried her hardest not to crack up during the call.
I understand that they are being polite but my point wasn’t really about whether they are being rude or polite but rather that it doesnt help me to not be corrected.
I know why they don’t correct but there is a nice way to correct someone at times (I do it with English) that If you think about it helps them. In a wider way I honestly feel that’s why many people going the other way (learning English in a Eng speaking country) seem to learn way quicker and better.
After living in Japan for years now I have seen people go to America or Canada for a few months and come back speaking incredibly well.
I think it’s a two fold thing:
Notice I didn’t say “master” I said to learn. I heard on a show on US news sometime ago that you can get away with knowing 100 words in English and basically survive.
We forget in our community since we are all Japan enthusiasts and enjoy Japanese that the vast majority of the world doesn’t care or use Japanese in anyway.
Even for me, and I’m a millennial, up until like middle school everyone Asian was just referenced to as “chinese” and no one cared to learn or about their language.
In any case, it’s just a hurdle we have to get over in a world of everyone trying to learn English. As it’s the language of the world. Pretty much old men at the izakaya may not care enough about English to speak with you in Japanese only and be nice.
I can say anecdotally most people who will speak Japanese only are old nice men in bars, or people who won’t want to deal with you as they don’t like English or foreigners here.
Someone brought up italki so I’ll have to pay for that and ask to be harshly corrected. I do think I’ll see some help here
which are those exactly? Curious as I am stocking up on all the Japanese learning materials I can get my hands on
Every Japanese learned seriously considering the JLPT or who has sat knows these books so you’ll def see them if you Do a quick search.
Somatome and Kanzen Master are the main series of books targeted for JLPT study. They start at N3.
Kanji, Grammar, Vocab, Reading, and listening.
At my izakaya the old men always seem to pick an English word of the day and ask me to correct their pronunciation then repeat it amongst themselves over and over. This week we had “thank you” with emphasis on getting the proper “th” sound, “persimmon”, and for some unfathomable reason, “racial discrimination”.
But you are right that they don’t want to have full conversations in English with you.
I have been studying Japanese for 27 years now and cannot pass level 2. I lived in Japan for 18 years so my speaking is pretty good although I am better at listening and reading. Since I moved back to the US my speaking ability has suffered a bit. My goal is N1 for personal reasons not for work. My wife is Japanese so I want to keep my language skill.
This is a marathon not a sprint. Props to you for getting N2 so fast but at what cost? Did you really learn as much as you thought. Unless you have a reason to get N1 so fast I say relax and enjoy Japan. Get on a train and go get lost somewhere. The further you get away from Tokyo the more your Japanese is needed to get around. Keep studying and you will get better.
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