I agree; conversation is hard but is the true application of skill. I have been to Japan twice and with a fear of failure, the first time I barely talked to anyone at all. My most complicated conversation was asking a shopkeeper in the subway where to buy a bus ticket (which I did understand and should have been more elated that I was but I had been where he had directed me before I asked. I went back up to realize I hadn't gone far enough to see the counter.) The second time, I had many people come up to me to practice their English while I was out but in the hostels, I did meet natives who encouraged me to use Japanese more; these conversations were broken but I had let myself get rid of some of that fear. It made me realize I needed to train my mouth more to be able to get better overall. So right now, even though some words differ between writing and speaking, I read aloud as often as I can. And the Yuyuのpodcast he mentioned in the video is one of my go-tos for listening, though the ones I can understand the most are the ghibli ones. I hope to take the JLPT N3 to be able to give my future employers an idea of what I am capable of, though the language likely won't be used in my country. But showing I had the dedication to achieve distinction in one of the hardest languages for English speakers might mean I can sign up for something more applicable to my community's needs and they might pay for it. Languages I know would be useful would be ASL, Spanish, Filipino, and Mam, the latter two being more difficult to find resources for, much less courses.

It was him.

The guy in his twitch chat

Im happy u mentioned me in the start of the vid if ur reading this fish slappee thx

Ah, I should have posted the link in the description. Here it is: djtguide.neocities.org/anki.html

start with immersion as soon as possible. Dont aim to understand everything. You'll get used to seeing words in context and find things easier with time.

There is a method out there that I believe was termed "washing" but I could be wrong. Basically, it is treating listening like a cycle going on in the background. You pick a podcast or conversation video that is no more than twenty minutes long, preferably between 5-10 minutes, and put it on repeat; keep it for the week as something you play when you are doing a mindless task like walking or chores or if you have nothing better to do. The point isn't to focus on finding the words you know because that will take you out of what is being said next. You want to let it flow over you so your ear begins to understand the pitches and sounds, the "music" of the language. Usually, you will listen to the same audio 50-100 times, which is why shorter videos are better but not too short as you eventually want to understand conversations that last longer than five minutes. If you can get your hands on graded readers, children's books, or apps that help you read Japanese like Todai, read the text aloud as often as you can to train your mouth, an easily forgotten part of language learning. There are some differences between reading and speaking in Japanese but practice is practice; you can study those differences later. Apps like Todai can also help you do something called scubadiving: you listen and read at the same time. I hope this helps with your immersion. I can say I returned to a video I used to "wash" from and was surprised how much I understood from it after being away for so long. Find podcasts here or on Spotify (though Spotify won't let you repeat them) and find a voice you like to listen to. Yuyu, mentioned in the video, has a nice voice but most of his videos are over 20 minutes. I like to check my progress with him in active listening instead.

@ChSasifras thank you for that detailed answer, ima try that!

Oh, can you point me to where in the video I said that? Because I have never been at N2 level. I think I peaked at N3, possibly.

my bad, i rewatched the video and you didnt say that. maybe i made it the f up? not sure lol@@FishSlappee

Yeah they kind of have the same phonetics. It's very easy to pronounce japanese correctly when you know swedish.

Oh no, lost you in what way?