Yea…I am realizing that it is probably more productive to even just do private tutoring 2x a week. Is this what you ended up doing?
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Right now I’m getting my WK reviews down to 0 every day + new items, Bunpro same + new items and I watch stuff on Netflix and read manga or books/stories and feed new words I come across into Anki, where I also have a couple of decks of N2/N3 stuff that I’m studying. Plus I speak to people. (I booked italki teachers before, but that doesn’t make much sense if you have enough people who talk to you for free…). So basically I have not had any lessons for a year or so and am still somehow progressing. People are different, but in my case I never learned more in lessons than when self-studying. (Which might have to do with the fact that I’ve been teaching foreign languages for 20 years though). When I took lessons it was mostly because I needed extrinsic motivation. That often worked, but honestly, lessons are too expensive for that. However, studying every day is the key, so whatever makes you do that is fair game. So did you get the private tutor?
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Heh. Sounds familiar — I still pay for a personal trainer because I know I’d blow off going to the gym more often than not if I hadn’t made an appointment with someone!
Human motivation is weird, but commitments to others (even if you’re paying them!) works for many of us.
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That’s lucky that you have people to talk to. I have one friend, and we chat 1-2x a month on skype, but obviously, that’s not enough! It’s also nice to have someone correct your speech.
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You can easily find more people to talk to online. It’s very unfortunate that italki took down that service. I met some of my closest Japanese friends there! I have not had such good experiences on other sites, like Tandem or Hello Talk. But maybe it was just me sulking over italki. 
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I found Tandem good enough, though I only have one person to talk to, since I didn’t really look for more, but I’ve been talking to them for more than a year, I think.
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It’s so true! That’s where I found my last 3 speaking partners. I will be honest, the reason why I do like japatalk and to pay is that:
- The teachers correct you
- One teacher I found does a lot of role playing exercises
- I don’t have to talk in English for an exchange.
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Finally! Some good news for us older people.
日本酒を三つお願いします
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Hi, I’ve tried online intensives with Kobe and Meiji Universities and Ishikawa prefecture. In short my favourite was Kobe. I’m rubbish at speaking, and Kobe include more of a written component as homework, so even if I struggled in class I was happy writing assignments X).
In case anyone’s interested:
Ishikawa
Summary
Ishikawa was entirely in Japanese, and didn’t give much prep so there wasn’t much chance to read the vocab in advance. It included chat sessions with local families which was awesome.
Meiji
Summary
Meiji seemed to have more of a youth target audience, all of our work seemed to revolve around topics like famous people (I chose Diane Fossey, I think pretty much everyone else chose Kpop bands). We had chat sessions and game sessions with the uni students. We had a cool zoom zen meditation session with a temple and a rakugo performance that was way over my head. Link
Kobe
Summary
There was rakugo with Kobe too, but in English so that I could understand the jokes XD. Kobe had great tutes, made the material available in advance so you could vocab mine, and did local zoom tours to supercomputers, onsen with a geologist, live market tours, interviews with earthquake survivors etc, it was constantly fascinating and really well scaffolded. Link
All of them had a few different levels to choose from, I’d love to do the next Meiji one one day as it has a poetry focus 
By the by, am I right in assuming it’s pointless looking for scholarships to study in Japan for over 40s? Every one that I’ve looked at has an age restriction, so I’m starting to think it’s a general rule?
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I would think it’s pointless. On the other hand if they are desperate for students it would make sense to relax their requirements. So it doesn’t hurt to look.
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I’m 74, and after a bit of scrolling, I can see it’s nowhere near a record! I got to level 12 WK before COVID, then thought I can’t go to Japan, why bother (my son lives in Tokyo, married to woman from Niigata, Japanese speaking family, who can also speak English). We communicate in English, regularly, encouraged for colloquial English practice. My attempts at Japanese not useful in the home, but necessary outside! So last week, I signed on again at #1, back up to #3. I’m enjoying it. Have visited Japan 20+ times, made good friends too. I look forward to going back now the borders are opening.
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hello! 
I am 46! I have been studying 日本語 for almost 7 years. I am a late bloomer in life period. I hear the term “It gets greater later.” That totally fits me! I love anime and I don’t care if it makes me creepy at “this age”… Anime makes me happy. I write fan fiction for adults only. Like huge books of it! (not saying that they are any good, but they make me feel good. 
) I believe learning, and having interest in anime and things must contribute to my youthfulness. It isn’t my goal more like a side effect. lol! I made up a saying in Japanese, (feel free to correct me if it is strange or wrong, I welcome it!) It goes, 若々しいのココロ常に roughly translated, “Youthful heart ALWAYS” よろしくお願いします。
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Wow! I just learned a new term thanks to your post! Nihonnshu／日本酒, is another way to say Sake／お酒? Or just Japanese sake? ありがとうございます
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Sake for everyone else is 日本酒 for them.
お酒 is alcohol.
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As @Kazzeon explained, 酒 basically means any alcohol. Use 日本酒 if you want to refer to Japanese sake (brewed rice “wine”) specifically.
Two more useful terms if you want to be even more specific:
-
冷酒 – Cold sake
-
熱燗 – hot sake
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Liking anime at "this age DOES NOT make you creepy. Little aggravates me more than younger people who think that we are old at 25 and must give up all hobbies to pay taxes and raise kids. I’m 47, and my re-discovery of anime a few years ago helped me connect not only with my own kids, but with my students as well (middle school aged). And I agree, it keeps you young at heart. Anyway, having interests when you’re older/more established could also mean you have more money to blow on your hobby rather than dealing with the penny pinching of your younger years! I’ve only been on my language journey for about 2.5 years, but I’m loving it and I’m glad you are too
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Thank you my friend! 
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Oops!! I forgot, I am suppose to reply to everyone in one message! I can’t use email to do it huh? Okay! Here I go!
@Rrwrex I appreciate the break down! That is so cool to learn more about different things! I have never had 冷酒 before! Have you? I do have some blueberry 酒 that I heat up! It is yum!! 熱燗, I am not sure if it was made to be this or if I just heated it up and liked it that way lol! How do you get the, oh what is it called again when the hiragana is over the kanji? That is so cool! I’d love to be able to do that!!
@savbohn Thank you for saying that!! It is nice to know there is someone else out there that is in my age bracket that feels the same way! I thought I was the sore thumb in our generation! lol! When I meet other’s my age (or around my age) and tell them I love anime… omg the looks and comments I get are not kind lol. I am usually met with things like, “Oh… My kids like that. I just think it is weird.” I just shrug and think, “Your loss.” I totally thought I was the only person in their 40’s with an “Anime-mobile” Car pimped out in anime stickers and my room has posters wall to wall!! I do it with pride no matter how “odd” people may see me! 
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Uhm. Yes. Yes, I have. I’m non-denominational when it comes to alcohol, but I do have a weakness for 日本酒.
I drink 冷酒 much, much more frequently. There’s little point in drinking the good stuff heated. You lose most of the subtle flavors once it’s warmed up.
熱燗 adds a nice vibe, though, and is great on a cold winter evening:
ふりがな can be added with the <ruby> tag in html. But there is also a nice user script for the forums to add it more easily.
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Ah yeees!! ふりがな！ Thank you! I would love to learn how to use that! Sounds really cool!
MaDDeR 
マダ―帽子屋:tophat:HaTTeR
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