Hello everyone!

Earlier this week I had my final exam, so I'm technically done with the "2-month experiment" but I'll be around here from time to time anyway, because the language was interesting and I look forward to when Japanese is added!

Speaking of which... it was definitely a challenge using an online method to learn a completely new language for me, it's a vastly different way or teaching compared to what I was used to - the more traditional approach that I had for almost 10 years with English - BUT I got used to it, and here I will share some tips, methods and comments regarding it:

1. Mix your daily activities: It's recommended you start doing lessons and after you finish a pair, you do some Word Tests. I'd also advice you to start doing a round of listening and writing sentences too, because that way you become more familiar with grammatical structure and pronunciation.
2. Focus on what you know: Sometimes during the listening and writing tasks you will encounter words you have not seen and may not even see soon. When that happens, you can choose between adding them to the "Learning Loop" or just ignore them and return to doing lessons for a bit, so when you come back the next day you have better chances of understanding or remembering the words. We learn through repetition and making mistakes!
3. Write Stories: Once you become somewhat comfortable with the vocabulary and basic grammar, start writing stories 2 or 3 times a week. If there's a word you want to use but don't know how to translate it, look it up in the site's dictionary and add it to the "Learning Loop", I felt it was way more useful to learn a word by trying to use it instead of encountering it randomly in an exercise.
4. Don't pressure yourself: The first mistake I made was setting an impossible goal to reach within the 2 months. It's okay to go on a steady pace, and do lessons calmly, there are a lot and if you try rushing through them, nothing's gonna stick. Ask questions, take notes, make mistakes, try again.
5. Use the forums: I took a while to properly use it and I should've done sooner, you will find posts about grammar structures, rules, vocabulary differences, tons of explanations and examples that will help a lot to understand why certain things are the way they are. Write them down on the "notes" page and have them handy when you wonder how to write sentences or ask questions in the language you're studying.

I did get confused or frustrated at times during this experiment, because I didn't understand something or felt there was inconsistency, but the team gave me great feedback and their support was really good for me, they explained thoroughly why something worked a certain way or why they don't do some stuff that I suggested could work, communication is key as usual.

I think that's everything that comes to my mind right now, and hopefully it helps someone! Thank you once again to everyone at Langoid and the lovely people in the forums for their help. Sampai jumpa!