Hi Ulver_684,
I know how you feel. My Japanese is between the Intermediate and Advance lvl. just to let you know.
All the people who speaks (fluent) Japanese as a second language, were also once beginners. Through all the hardship, endurance, sacrifice and devotion people made just to speak Japanese, we then gain lots of experience, learn how it works and even pass the JLPT lvl 1 as the highest honor one can ever achieve as a non Japanese citizen.
In other words, Intermediate/ Adv. students have more experience than beginners.
I must unfortunately tell you, that the Newbie lessons are no longer Newbie lessons but maybe beginner or even intermediate lessons.
Tell me...if you see a Newbie who can:
order and pay in restaurants, talk about medical stuffs like allergies, ask in a very polite way (teineigo), know where to ask for directions and even read some Kanji's and say he is a Newbie? ...your kidding right? even Intermediate students have problems with stuffs related to this and all of them are being covered in the Newbie lesson. You also must know that the JLPT will be divided into 5 lvl's this year. That means some of the hard stuff will be moved back and lvl 1 will be getting harder. I think about 200 new kanjis will also be on the new JLPT Kanji list.
In short...we are not here to show off, but rather being forced to come back here. Why? because JPod101 wants us to pass those JLPT test by making it easier as possible. How? If they ask for 100 Kanji's for lvl 4, Jpod101 gives you 200. If you take lvl 2, JPod101 wants you to be at the lvl of a lvl 1 student. And for lvl 1: need 2000 Kanji's? JPod101 wants you to learn 3000 Kanji's before taking the exam.
They are trying to make life very hard at the beginning so you can sit back and relax during exams..
Cheers !!!