Referring to yesterday, today I wrote:

"It was the first time I've been to Minakami."

Does this sentence make sense? Is it grammatically correct? I honestly don't know. What the heck has happened to my brain?! Living in an environment where I don't hear much advanced (HA! "advanced"!), normal, or correct English on a daily basis-- but rather awkward, unnatural, textbook English-- and where, in order to be understood, I have to use predominately simplified and/or textbook English myself, I have started to (or maybe I'm far beyond "started to") lose my ear for which English words and phrases sound correct and normal. Sometimes I catch myself-- or worse yet, I don't catch myself, but my friends do-- uttering awkward or badly arranged English. This is shocking!...to forget your own native language...and in such a short amount of time, too! I'm going around saying things like, "We came by car" (translation: "We drove"), "It became dark" (translation: "It got dark"), and other such nonsense. It's embarrassing! BUT then, today my symptoms became even worse. I wrote the above sentence in a student's notebook, and I thought maybe it wasn't right...so I re-read it...and again...and out loud...and tried to think of alternatives...then re-read it...and with my head in my hands, I concluded that I had no idea one way or the other whether or not this sentence is okay!!!! OhMyGosh! "I'm going crazy", I said to myself. I have lost the ability to filter native English. This is unbelievable.