I wasn't able to reply to your question below. I think it was the program (Ohio State has an excellent program) that provided me with the tools for this. It c

I wasn't able to reply to your question below. I think it was the program (Ohio State has an excellent program) that provided me with the tools for this. It came down to imitating successful patterns of speech and behavior (they called them core conversations), the heavy focus on proper intonation (more imitation, if your intonation is off, you're never going to make Japanese speakers comfortable listening to your speech) and the practice of spaced repetition (through flashcards, for learning kanji), which I had never been exposed to growing up. For that last one, I'm actually in debt of my buddy who got me into the kanji flashcards.