Aye, that’s it.

You can hear it in some words like 日本, as ‘nippon’ and ‘Japan’ both feel closer to the Middle Chinese pronunciation than they are to modern Mandarin’s ‘rìběn’.

Also, I hear Chinese students unintentionally (or half-intentionally) slip in Mandarin pronunciations all the time when they forget the Japanese pronunciation that is very close.

Japanese speaking and listening is still harder than reading and writing for me, and I’m guessing it’s the same for you, since you already know 漢字?

Yes.

When talking with the average American back home, there are lots of things you can sense they don’t notice and don’t seem to think about, especially if they’ve never even travelled.

From small things like always being cognizant of time zone differences and phone number country codes you use, to bigger things like seeing how crappy American restrictive zoning laws, suburban hellscapes, and car-centric society are.

Also, from the weeb perspective, going from needing anime subtitles to almost not needing them is pretty interesting.

I live in Japan, and of course there are formal ways to say everything, but in formal and polite situations, people actually try to avoid saying ‘you’ (anata, 貴方) as much as possible. Because even that can feel too personal. I only see it in writing that addresses the reader indirectly, like in surveys.

If you do address or refer to them, you typically use their title/position (e.g., ‘sensei’ for doctors and teachers, ‘Mr. President’), or name and appropriate honorific (e.g., Tanaka-san).

P.S., a lot of what might’ve been archaically formal and polite ways to say ‘you’ have become ironically rude and/or condescending. Like, ‘KISAMA!’ (貴様), kimi (君) (sovereign/lord), onushi (お主) (lord).