I understand where brandless goods is coming from. I went to 2 semesters of japanese at my community college. By the time I had finished 2 I was better than a lot of the people who had taken all four. That's when I realized how much of a waste of time going to class was for me. I think that knowing basic grammar structure is something that you have to have before you can really talk to anybody, or read anything. THAT"S why class is important, but after I found tae kim's guide to japanese, I was able to progress and learn everything that was taught in 2 WHOLE YEARS, in only 1 MONTH. Adding time to learn hiragana and katakana and getting used to japanese, it took me maybe 2 months.

Maybe you guys have different classes, but seriously, why would I PAY to spend an extra 1.75 years to learn basic grammar?

And yes I agree that there is a lot of good information in the classes to learn, but I think that that stuff can be learned a lot faster, and in a more fun way if you are reading manga or playing games.