@gavmck Thanks for the post. Fortunately people in my real life have been 100% supportive of me learning Japanese through self-study. The criticism was online, and of someone who has many opinions I don't really agree with. I just decided to take the opportunity to step back and look at what I was doing with my self-study. I also wanted to throw it on here to get some feedback. The advice I've received so far has been very useful, I'm really happy this community exists!

I'm happy I went the kanji route first, the best part about it is that it got me into a Japanese study routine. Before I did RTK I wasn't very serious in my studies. As for RTK, I do plan on doing part 3 maybe a year from now. At the moment I feel I have more important things to be spending my study hours on. If I come across a kanji I don't know I just un-suspend it and learn it.

I don't really see how someone can teach another person grammar either. I could be wrong though. For myself I learn the patterns and rules, then it's still clear as mud. Once I see it a bunch of times in different scenarios it slowly starts to stick and make sense.

The other day I finally started watching dramas and I got subs2srs up and running on my mac. I've been watching "My Girl", which is fairly easy to understand. These two things I think are going to be a nice boost to my understanding.

I'm currently in the application process for the ISI school in Shinjuku (well actually the application is done, just waiting for my Visa COE now). I have a small chance of getting sent to Tokyo with my current job but if not the plan is to quit work and "retire" for a few years using the student VISA to allow me to stay long term without worrying about having to find a job.

I'm currently at about a JLPT N3 level, if I had to guess. I can read children's books for enjoyment and have at least slight knowledge of up to 6,000 jukugo (that is how many I've seen in Anki though I haven't mastered most of them yet).

The way I'm looking at language school is as a source of forced input rather than as an actual source of new advice/information. I'm definitely not expecting to be wowed by the teaching methods. I plan on continuing my self study methods and just using the class more as a reinforcement tool. By staying ahead of the curve in the reading/kanji/grammar department everything the teacher says should be a form of comprehensible input for me which I think will be great to cement in everything I already know. Paying for classes will also keep me from ever having the ability to resort to a complete "English bubble". I'm pretty positive I would not do this regardless but at least with classes I know I'll be doing something in Japanese every day, no matter what I feel like.

Maybe my plan is idiotic but I guess we'll just have to see haha.

My plan is sort of the same, I intend to go to a language school in kyoto once i graduate. I don't expect that the school alone will make me amazingly fluent, and I certainly intend to continue my current self study process. However I do think schooling offers some good points in certain area's, plus I get the opportunity to live there for a year .

While self study might have won the "self study vs school" debate, I personally think both have their strong and weak points, so a combination of both will contribute each others strengths and weaknesses.