Hello all, I've been studying Japanese for a year now and I've been really enjoying it so far. During this time, I've been very steadily going through Genki I and II while consulting the excellent Tokini Andy as a source, plus I have all my written notes and answers from there to consult with. Additionally, I've been using the Anki Core 2000 deck that entire time and have expanded it to the next 4000 words, I've gotten to word 2700-ish and my current pace is 20 new words a day.
That being said, I have no actual experience in communicating with anybody at all, no speaking, no texting, no nothing. The reason for that is, I told myself I would begin that process once I wrapped up some textbooks.
However, I now am post Genki and despite feeling proud/achieved for finally reaching this far, I am really not looking foward to grinding additional textbooks, and would like to start the transition towards understanding actual, organic japanese, whether that be immersion, or texting with speakers, reading articles or whatever. It seemed like a straight foward process in my head at first, but I really have no clue where to even start now I've reached this point.
What resources, strategies, or personal experiences that helped would you recommend to someone of my level? I would post in r/LearnJapanese but I have no contribution there, therefore I'm not allowed to post.
My goal is to become conversationally fluent, no matter time sink or how hard it is. I'm a native English speaker if that helps. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
Youtube channels I already know exist and look foward to taking notes on:
Karen Shidahara
Kaname Naito
by thegroundhogjar