Best way to learn Japanese?

My school has a Japanese club. A club, not a class.

I'd say the best way is Rosetta Stone. It got awesome reviews, but it's pretty expensive.

I don't think you should try to teach it to yourself, though; that could end up with some wacky side effects. Let Rosetta teach you.
 
http://www.youtube.com/user/Gimmeaflakeman#grid/user/EDDF3FC5BA6C602E

Watch GIMMEAFLAKEMAN's Japanese 4 Morons videos! This guy is really cool and helpful! His videos have taught me so much Japanese, and they're really fun too. In addition to all those videos, he has a website that complements the videos with more information - www.maggiesensei.com And he comes out with new videos and updates the site very often.
Go check him out, you'll learn a lot of stuff!
And his dog is cool.

EDIT: Oh, and he also has a new Street Kanji series for those learning kanji.
 
Get yourself a hiragana/katakana chart and put it on your wall. Try to memorize a new syrabol everyday

Download a Japanese character IME on your computer. Find out how here! It helps when you visit Japanese websites (so the characters are read properly) and you can practice your writing, ね?

If you can get to a Japanese bookstore (online or offline), I recommend looking for learning books for kiRAB. They're cute and simple and should help you with some kanji and word recognition. Also maybe look for an English learning book, which will include what the English phrase or whatever means in Japanese.

I took Japanese classes in college so I have a few textbooks, but I'd also check to see if your area has any Japanese language tutors. It's so much more helpful when you can ask somebody questions!
 
Rosetta Stone is a very disreputable company. Don't waste your money. There's plenty of free language learning software out there.



There's plenty of websites out there where you can chat with native speakers, such as LiveMocha. I'm actually surprised so many people are recommending taking a class. I took 6 years of French in middle school and high school and I can barely form a sentence. Maybe college courses are better or something, but I've been studying Spanish on my own for about 9 months and have found that I'm learning much more with computer programs than I ever could in a classroom.



Awesome reviews from who? Their own website? Their aRAB are full of lies. They claim that they give you a money back refund, but even if the software doesn't work, you're pretty much out of luck, as not only will they not give you a refund, they'll sue you if you try to sell your copy of the software. Read some of the horror stories people submitted to this website:

http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/review-of-rosetta-stone.html
 
I've only had class for about 6 weeks, but already I can read hiragana and katakana, ask "where" "who" and "which" questions, and form X is Y statements. I even know a handful of verbs. I actually do most of the learning outside of classes, but the classes are great practice times. I don't think I'd do as well without the classes.
 
That still doesn't mean that there aren't community colleges that offer it. Disregard any video or website you find--I know people who've wasted their time and money by trying to learn it through the internet or by themselves. You need to be put in a setting where you're speaking the language daily with others and in an area that will help you correct your mistakes. Otherwise, you're never going to learn a thing.
 
But, there are websites where other users correct your mistakes. It may not be as good as talking to someone in person, but it's ridiculous to say that you're never going to learn a thing from websites. If you apply yourself and dedicate enough time to learning it you will learn a lot. You probably won't become fluent just from learning off of websites, but I doubt you'll become fluent just from taking a class, either.
 
Not while you're speaking, though. I'm not saying that you can't learn anything from a website, but it's much less easy to realize you're doing something wrong through someone actually telling you. I know that you've been doing this with Spanish, but understand that learning Japanese and learning Spanish through the internet are going to be completely different skills. Applying yourself and doing it online in your free time is a waste for Japanese, honestly. You might be able to pick up a few things, but there's absolutely no way you'll gain any significant speaking skills. After two years, a college student studying Japanese can go over there and carry on conversations with people. Do you really think that two years of studying on the internet are going to produce the same results?
 
Even though you didn't learn much in your French classes in middle school, that varies depending on the teachers and the curriculum. French classes in elementary and middle school in general aren't designed to make a kid fluent; they're more of an introduction to the language.

You might be able to speak with people using a computer, but where exactly would you find them? It's not as if there's a common area where people who want to practice speaking Japanese with each other can do it. Even then, are you speaking with someone fluent or someone just as inexperienced? Because if it's the latter, that still doesn't mean the two of you would catch all of the mistakes going on. If you take a class in Japanese, in two years (along with learning some slang), you probably wouldn't have too much of a problem trying to pick up a woman in a bar.

There's also the case with writing. Even though Hiragana and Katakana can be picked up in about a week or two, Kanji is a completely different story. To be considered fluent, you have to learn about 2000 total. Even then, the way they're hand-written is often different from the way they look typed. Unless following a curriculum or studying through textbooks, there's not going to be an easy way to transition into that. The same goes with speaking patterns, as native Japanese speakers will be able to tell you what syllables to stress in worRAB and how to fix an accent.

The thing is, even a college course in Spanish seemingly might be the better route for you to go as well. School semesters last about 12 weeks, and I'm relatively sure most students learn more than just the basic "how are you" stuff in two semesters. Though your dedication to learning by yourself is pretty amazing, the title of the thread is "Best way to learn Japanese." HellCat is still young, so I would advise him to look into the matter of whether or not there are places nearby that offer the classes. Notably, community colleges--they're more efficient cost-wise.
 
http://www.livemocha.com/searches?key=1056ff7fb8497872868a5ce590cbdfa66a4a8824&data[Search][native]=ja&data[Search][foreign]=en-us&data[Search][search_key]=

There's hundreRAB of native Japanese speakers to choose from and there are other similar websites if you don't like that one. Just find one that's online and send a chat request, or if you want to chat with a particular user who's not online send them a message and set a date and time when you're both free to chat.



I don't mean to undervalue college courses. I definitely wished I had taken Spanish while in college now that we're in a recession and so many employers need Spanish speaking people. I was only taking issue with your comment that "You're never going to learn a thing" from using online resources. Some would say you can't learn a language if you don't actually travel to the country of origin. Many people would say "You're never going to learn a thing" from a college course. Those, of course, are people who are rich enough to travel to Europe and Asia. The point I'm trying to make is that language learning shouldn't be reserved only for those wealthy enough to travel to another country or pay for a course. Even if someone doesn't have a computer I would encourage them to go to the library and take out books and tapes to help them learn a language. Language learning should be encouraged, regardless of the method used.
 
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