Japanese related posts:
The Confusing Giving and Receiving Grammar
I learned most of my foundational Japanese grammar through Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese, probably one of the best grammar book for beginner out there. It does not really follow JLPT grammar, but it teaches you Japanese from the ground up and cover a lot of topics, ranging from the most fundamental like Japanese writing system to the more advanced ones like casual patterns and slangs. Unlike many other grammar books, it does not start and revolve around using the polite form, but instead start with introducing the simplest grammar points in casual form.
Caught Off Guard By Compound Verbs
When speaking Japanese, I’ve gotten used to not being able to catch what the speakers are saying, like being completely unable to parse what they are saying or missing crucial words to make sense of the utterance. That basically what the first few years of learning Japanese is, afterall. The response for that is usually straightforward: just ask the speaker to repeat what they said (no guarantees you would catch it the second time, though).