It’s like that.

So keep patiently inputting. Output will come. And give yourself some credit — you understand Japanese, dude! You’ll have plenty of time and opportunity to speak once you’re able. Until then, just enjoy your input. Remember, that you’re still a baby, Japanesewise. No one takes an x-month old baby and goes: “why aren’t you speaking yet? you need to earn your keep!!”, and neither should you to yourself.

But…I don’t think I’ve read that much code thus far :(. Not consciously, anyway.

I’d been living in Japan for about a year at the point when I found this and all I could think was “oh my god I’m screwed!” because I’d been speaking since about October. Since I’ve started doing this though and getting into the repetitions I’m finding I hear a lot of words/sentence structures (like 。。。親切かどうか。。。) that I would be amazed if people hadn’t been saying the whole time and I just hadn’t heard them. But along with that I’m finding that the way I’m saying things is changing with the repetitions. The kids where I work used to make fun of me because I always, always say/said (sentence…（だ）から） but now I’m learning a lot of other things. The point of my post is: I’m not sure the damage is irreparable like I first though, so don’t get all frustrated (I did) and think you’re doomed.

I know what you mean about the politeness thing. Spanish obviously doesn’t have it to the extent that Japanese does, but I always am confused about whether or not to speak politely to Spanish-speaking people I meet in the factory I work in. Like I just met a guy and he was like 10 years older than me at most. I didn’t know whether to address him as an elder or just as a friend/person my age. Other than that I live in a very very white community so there’s almost no one of a different race here. It’s kinda sad.

>Do you like Sergent Garcia?
I had not heard of him (embarrassingly after I just said I like Spanish music) until you just mentioned it, but with a quick Google search I found a snippet of a song. Sounds good, I’ll have to check him (them?) out more. The name sounds French, and a lot of info I found was in French and Spanish. Is it a French person? I have to admit by saying I like Spanish music I have tried to find music that is more “rocky” and some rap, too, not so much the traditional-style Spanish music. I honestly don’t care for the music that they play on the local radio stations (3 radio stations in my area and they all play the exact same music). I don’t even know exactly what the genre is called, but it all sounds pretty much the same to me!

Absolutely. That is what I’m saying.
The one thing I did rack my brain about a lot when I first come here was what “register” to use. I found myself speaking to (older) people too politely. But that’s a sociocultural thing rather than a linguistic thing. It’s a matter of “how do I behave”?, and not “how should I say it?”.

>I like Spanish music a lot
Do you like Sergent Garcia?

Thanks again!

Yeah. Use
1) Beginner books with readings on all kanji, and
2) Dictionaries with example sentences. There are good online dictionaries to make your copy/pasting possible.
By the way, as far as translating: don’t translate your sentences (i.e. don’t do your own translation). In the beginning, you’ll probably be doing Japanese-English from simple sources. so the sentences should come with a translation, therefore all you need do is use it. After a little while, you’ll be doing Japanese-Japanese only, so the very concept of translation will become moot.
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>So how can I get into other stuff like websites and still get a good translation?

Like I said, don’t translate your sentences. While you’re still at the stage of depending on English to learn Japanese, use a bilingual source/website.
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>I just don’t see how anyone is supposed to translate the sentence they’re supposed to be studying if they don’t have the knowledge to do so, and if they do have the knowledge to do so, then why are they translating the sentence in the first place?

So, to repeat. don’t translate your sentences. But, how do you branch out from your safe, simple sentence sources like beginner’s books, into websites? Well, what’ll happen is, given the solid foundation of a good beginner’s material, you’ll quite soon understand enough about the structure of Japanese to know what function a word is carrying out (what it is doing in a sentence), but often without knowing what that word means and/or how to read its kanji; in other words, if you see:「資料を配る」, you’ll know that 資料 is a noun and it is the direct object of 配る, which is a verb. In other words, the 資料 are being 配るed.
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> I don’t see, at my very beginning stage, how I can mine sentences out of anything other than books.

Yeah, that’s pretty much true. At the very beginning, all you’ll have are books and beginner websites. Those will be your springboard to more varied and interesting material.

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On another note. A lot of your work in Japanese will be what you might call: “一敗万勝”–”one failure, myriad successes”. The first time you do not know the reading of a word/kanji, or the first time you do not know how to say something, that’s what we’ll call a “failure”. But, what you do is learn the reading of a word/kanji, learn the way to say something and (thanks to your SRS) remember it. Thereafter, as far as that particular word is concerned, you will have a “myriad successes”, in that you’ll know the reading of the kanji, or you’ll know the way to say something. Eventually, you have so many “successes”, that we call it fluency.
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Thanks for that. Keep your questions and comments coming