Thankfully Self Studying Has Been Working for Me

Since I got news that I will be doing self studying to learn Japanese, I have been studying with a English teacher at school 2 or 3 times a day for 45 minutes. I have been learning new vocabulary, and I now know Hiragana (one of the three Japanese syllabary, this is the one that is most used) sounds and the characters. That is only one small step though, but luckily I brought my Japanese learning books with me from America. I am able to say basic things in Japanese and I understand what my host family says to me for the most part, but I can't really form sentences to respond back and I can't read Japanese. It also took a while for my ears to adjust to Japanese sounds, and how fast/quite the Japanese speak as well. So hopefully over time, this self-studying will help me over come that! I want to speak Japanese so badly, and I think learning it is fun. It's defiantly a lot of work, but I think the best way to learn the language is maybe fully immerse yourself in the culture/life only knowing how to say the word for hello....and you'll have to learn it....sounds like the job of an exchange student! Hmmm?