Indeed, it's a valuable experience, I miss it a lot. I still play otome games now, but I don't feel the passion and heated discussions like back in the day, lol.
Japanese is niche, so we didn't have a lot of members (the English club had more!). I think kanji is the reason why many students are scared of learning Japanese. Most of the Japanese club members love anime and manga, that's probably the main reason why we joined and stayed, lol.
I remember one of my friends ask me:
"ほんまって何?"
"さあ, 半魔じゃない?"
And my president laughed so hard hearing that, lmao (I can't blame him lol). If it's a rabbit hole for native Japanese speakers, for us non-natives, it's like an alien language! It's funny to hear, but hard to deduce every sentence.
When you look back on things from your school days after becoming an adult, they somehow seem so much brighter and more precious, don't they? I'm really envious that you have such wonderful memories from that time.
And since that experience led you to continue engaging with the Japanese language through manga, anime, and other things even now, I think it's wonderful that you had such a unique experience that's difficult to come by!
I honestly have no idea how many kanji there are in existence either, but we Japanese learn around 2,100 commonly used kanji during our nine years of compulsory education, starting at age six. If I remember correctly, we learned about two new kanji in each class. Even as adults, we sometimes come across and learn new kanji in our everyday lives.
There's actually an interesting problem these days, though. Since we type so much on computers and smartphones instead of writing by hand, more and more people are starting to forget how to write certain kanji!
If I had been there, I probably would have laughed just like your president when I heard that conversation, haha. It's honestly so adorable.
Although I can't really make fun of you for that, because sometimes English sounds like Japanese to me too, haha!
For example, Hokkaido, which was home to an indigenous people, and Okinawa, which was once an independent kingdom called the Ryukyu Kingdom, have preserved many elements of the languages that were spoken there historically. So sometimes, rather than feeling like I'm listening to Japanese, it almost feels like I'm listening to a foreign language.
Because of that, many people from Hokkaido and Okinawa are aware that people from outside their regions may not understand their local speech, so they'll often adjust the way they speak and use something closer to standard Japanese when talking to outsiders.
I've been studying English for a long time, but I still always struggle with understanding native English when sounds get reduced or words run together.
There have also been more foreign tourists visiting Japan over the past few years, so I've had more opportunities to be asked for directions or help finding a particular shop. I always get nervous when I have to respond, though!
When I speak a language that I'm not used to speaking, I always feel a little anxious about whether the other person can actually understand my terrible English, haha.
私も見習いたい（何を）
(lol) I don't know how to put it, but Hiroshima-ben just feels really masculine to me. There's something very manly about the way it sounds.