textbooks teach proper japanese, it’s just a bit formulaic. beginner lessons also tend to add subjects without need.
saying though that textbook japanese is not “real japanese” isn’t quite correct.
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I can actually think of a lot of things i wouldve liked to know right away that i was never told
(And i started learning in a classroom setting, only thing it remembered since was kana)
Since ditching everything from there and finding my own ressources ive actually progressed massively.
Also i have developed the cynical view that language schools are a scam. (But im sure thats just because good teachers are hard to come by)
- Auxiliary verbs (and other modifiers), and how modifications work
To me this seems like the big step moving from making simple sentences like children would, to being able to speak/read/write like an adult.
I realize that this is an advanced part of the language and requires knowledge about several other parts, but it seems so essential to mastering japanese.
If i could choose one thing to know it would be this.
Overall i wish i had been taught from more of a top down approach.
To be taught specifically about japanese word classes, inflections, modifications and how all the particles fit into it all.
After teaching myself these things and disregarding everything i know about western grammar i found everything to be quite easy and straighforward.
Edit: The word i was looking for was “Agglutinative” which japanese is very heavy on.
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I have heard it used very commonly in a business context and in other situations where I have been speaking 丁寧語. (I am often older or hold a more senior position than the people that I am talking to, and so I tend to both use and be spoken to in very polite Japanese.)
I assume that you are probably younger or the same age as the people that you are speaking with? If you are just talking with friends that would explain why you haven’t heard it used.
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I wish that there had been more emphasis on Katakana and that I had been taught to take “Loan Words” more seriously as part of the Japanese language (and not to think of them as English, French or Portuguese words said with a Japanese accent 
)
Katakana is a real weakness for my reading fluency…
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can totally relate. The more reading I do, the more I get stuck on Katakana words that I would easily have understood if they were written in hiragana or kanji. It turns out Katakana is used for style as well as loanwords.
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I wish TextFugu didn’t teach everything in polite mode first. Having to learn to do casual verbs by converting from the ます form is a bit めんどくさい. That said, the lessons were fun and I did get to where I could do the opposite easily, so 
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It would have have made life so much easier!
My tips for teachers:
~ explain why masuform exists AND at the same time teach dictionaryform
~ immediately start kanji learning, don’t wait
~ start speaking from day 1
~ don’t say things are complicated, or difficult (even if you think so, keep it a secret)
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I think what I’m gathering from this post, and other resources, is that even people who think they know how to teach a language properly, usually don’t.
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especially not Japanese people, in my humble opinion, because they’ve been taught all their lives with methods that are inefficient, at least if you’re not already fluent in Japanese as a child, and don’t have 8 years to learn the Joyo kanji.
In my japanese class in college, we were given 10 kanji or so with all kun and on readings to memorize until next week.
Though then again, teaching Japanese is especially hard.
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I was teaching Spanish as a third language for two months at five different classes and used SRS and mnemonics the way Wanikani use. At my second day at one 9 grade class I was met with an standing ovation and people telling me so proudly how much they have learned from two hours of class and one week of homework. I am not good at Spanish, and I had a hard time with all languages at school while I was a student. I think many could profit from Wanikani’s approach, even though it is not the way they themselves studied, I even see my hardships with normal education as a big plus, since it makes me more creative in pursuing alternative methods.
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WaniKani:
- I wish I would have been taught that WaniKani vocabulary is helpful, but is not intended to be a complete and thorough vocabulary list, and is more geared towards only giving examples of various different kanji readings.
- I wish I had read people’s guides on leveling up quickly on these forums, and explanations about the mechanics of the SRS (and how you can actually let vocab lessons pile up).
Reading (non-textbooks):
- I wish someone would have told me that as a foreign adult learner, it might be painfully boring and unhelpful to try and read all-hiragana children’s books intended for native Japanese children. I wish someone would have told me that it might be a better use of time to skip the all-hiragana Japanese kids books and keep reading textbook sentences until one can read sentences that have kanji in them.
Reading (textbooks and dictionaries):
- I wish someone would have told me what approximate Japanese level each book was geared towards. As a beginner, it’s very hard to open a book and know who the book was written for, and it can be frustrating to try and read a book that implicitly assumes a bunch of background knowledge already.
PC/Mac Typing:
- I wish I had been taught that to only use the hiragana mode and English mode for typing (and not ever using the katakana mode). I also wish I had configured a faster shortcut for switching modes early on.
- I wish I knew about Google’s Japanese IME instead of Apple/Microsoft’s built-in one.
Writing by hand:
- I wish I would have ignored the posts on the internet that claim that writing Japanese by hand is unnecessary and that learning writing is a waste of time.
- I wish I would have realized that it’s possible to kinda practice writing anywhere, without a pen or piece of paper, just by moving your index finger around on a table, or in midair, as if it were a pen.
Hiragana/Katakana:
- I wish I realized that mnemonics (such as https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ ) are helpful, but not as helpful as writing each character out by hand many, many times.
Kanji:
- I wish someone would have told me that >95% of Android apps for learning kanji are poorly made and unhelpful.
- I wish I would have discovered this Kanji Study app earlier: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindtwisted.kanjistudy&hl=en_US
Grammar:
- I wish I read https://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-Japanese-Learning/dp/0934034168 sooner
- I wish I had been taught to use and think about plain Japanese verb conjugations first (taberu instead of tabemasu).
Self-assessment:
- I wish I knew to study to specifically prepare for a standardized test, such as the JLPT.
- I wish I knew about http://www.j-cat.org/en/
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I wish I would have trusted my feelings earlier and started studying by myself, instead of wasting years in a classroom setting I just hated.
I wish I would have known WaniKani earlier. I always thought I was just too stupid to remember the Kanji.
I wish I had tried using mnemonics earlier.
I wish I had experienced the benefits of slow and steady learning routines over irregular binge learning earlier.
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