I've been learning Japanese for about 7 years now. I passed the AP Japanese exam senior year with a 4 and got my biliteracy seal, and took an automated kanji test to determine my range right now is 1200-1400.
Recently, as I've been watching more Japanese media and listening to more music as well as practicing the language, I've realized that songs I've used to listen to that I never really understood I now just completely understood the lyrics and felt the emotion just like it was an English song. noticed the same thing watching some animes and news programming, it felt like I didn't have to really try to catch for key words as much like in the past and I could kind of just sit back and listen. That honestly makes me really giddy and happy.
by SomeScarredSapient