Level 1 INTRO tests (one part asks to choose the correct writing in Japanese!) confused

Hello all,

I just started learning here but I was discouraged when right at the first lesson..in the tests, I had to choose the correct writing in Japanese for some expressions.  I am just a beginner, are we supposed to know how to write in japanese before starting with the audio lessons (1st lesson on the site)?  I cannot complete that section which is part of the INTRO module.  What kind of intro is this? 

Anyone has an idea how to navigate this course? Seems like it's all over the place and I want to go step by step

Hi PatriciaS-uocw,

Sorry to hear that you're finding the course confusing to navigate. The activities that you're referring to (Extra: Composing (Kana) and (Extra: Composing (Kana)) are indeed part of the first lesson (and all subsequent lessons).

These are extra tests that test your Japanese character knowledge. Of course, we do not expect brand new learners to Japanese to be able to complete these activities, but we still believe that there should be a feature for users to test these skills. As such, you can skip these activities until you are more confident in your Kanji / Kana skills. You are then able to return to the earlier lessons and complete this activity once you can read Japanese. There is no detriment to not completing these activities; they do not count for points and do not count towards completion. 

I hope this helps!

Those are definitely parts I came back to after a lot of studying and being much further along in my studying.  It's good practice once you have gotten into Japanese for a while.   It makes you really pay attention to sentence structure, etc.  I love the reinforcement.