I've been learning for the past two years. The first year on my own, and then I took two courses at university. I found that learning on my own seems to be way more effective than the classes at university. I mainly focus on speaking and understanding the language, so I try to watch Japanese TV (recently I dropped the English subtitles), listen to simple podcasts, and watch videos on YouTube. I don't want to completely neglect reading and writing, so I'm also learning kanji using Heisig's method. Though it will probably take me until mid-next year to work through that book.

I just bought a suit for a friend's wedding!

New vocab:

• 生地 cloth, fabric
• 生地感 texture of fabric
• 縮める bring in the sides/waist/legs
• 仕立て tailoring, fitting
• 直線的 linear
• 曲線的 curved (style for broad-shouldered as opposed to 直線的 for skinny guys)
• 既製 off-the-shelf, ready-to-wear (as opposed to パターンオーダー)
• お渡し ready, done

I've been out of practice for a while (darn that real life!), but I'm trying to get back in the swing by reading NHK's Easy News articles (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/) on a regular basis. Hopefully soon I can try to read more of the "regular" news (普通のにゅーす) linked at the bottom of the articles.