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12-01-2010, 03:12 PM
I'm really sorry I had overlooked your questions. Hope you're still around.
Just an average Tokyo dude here. Yeah, I was 19 when I first saw an American up close. Boy, did he look like a hairy beast! How in the world was I ever gonna speak his language if dense body hair was to be the prerequisite? Now, I can get by in French as well and get the Chinese waitresses cracking up with my broken Mandarin. I studied German and Spanish in college as well but I don't remember one word of either, which is why my own estimate of my linguistic skills is very low. Regarding the "talk to yourself" method, it worked for me though it was mentally extremely exhausting. Trust me, most people won't last two days doing it. I did it everywhere literally - at home in the bath, out on the street while walking, on the trains, etc. You wouldn't know how many times my Mom tried to drag me to the shrink. I did it because I had this gut feeling that if I studied English the same way my friends and sempais were studying, I would never get anywhere as none of them seemed to be improving their skills nearly as much as I wanted to improve mine. So, we kinda went separate ways. You simply can't learn a foreign language if you hang out with your friends all day speaking your first language. Your Japanese is very different from most other learners' that I've seen. And I've seen a lot, too. Your writing reads very easily because your overall "flow" is so natural. What I'm trying to say is that your word/phrase choices are so natural that native speakers can just skim through it without having to guess what you are trying to say. Seriously, this is a talent. I would say from my own experience that the next year or two will be crucial. Study as much as you can while paying attention to the details for a couple of more years and a high level of Japanese will be yours for as long as you live. If you slack off, which I don't think you will, because you feel like you already can say pretty much what you want to say, then that'll be that. You will be stuck on that plateau for good. 
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