25歳 as of May 19th. I have been teaching myself for 6 years and I've hit a wall and I need help. I want to move forward in this journey to fluency so that I can be somewhat prepared for living in Japan. I've always wanted to go and I hear the good and the bad about foreigners or 外人 and especially 黒人/こく人 and being in Japan. It hasn't stopped me from wanting to go and honestly no matter where I go I'll end up experiencing some things there that I do here already... My goal is to be kind to everyone there, learn all that I can and be the blessing. My secondary goal is to figure out kanji, its readings and of course vocabulary is a must. If there are any teachers reading this then please know that I am not a fresh beginner, I can pick up grammar VERY well and I already know a large handful of Japanese grammar/sentence constructs. I still find myself learning/relearning so please let's all do our best and eventually I'll rewrite this whole thing in Japanese with NO help from Google Translate!!! 頑張りましょう！よろしくね。