I'm learning Japanese. Where do I start?

[pcesupergrafx]

Sooooo.... I've learned Hiragana and about 50 basic Kanji and some grammar and about 20 or so words. But I can't say anything fast, its hard for me to memorize any words and the only sentences I can make are interrogative,declarative and past tense for both. Any good website suggestions? I'm only in middle school so there's not A lot of places I can go to besides the Internet and the library. Me and my dad collect and I really want to be able to play more Pc-Fx games but I can only play Chip chap kick, Battle heat zeroigar and Last Imperial Prince. Help is really appreciated. Btw even though I'm a kid I'm pretty smart. I can already speak Russian so I'm pretty good with language learning but I'm just stumped with Japanese.Thanks!

[Opethian]

get a rosetta stone

[SignOfZeta]

The best place to learn anything is usually your local community college. The pressure of weekly classes will be more effective than any software.

[pcesupergrafx]

I just signed up for this site called LiveMocha and I'm gonna get a tutor tommorow.   

  I WANT TO PLAY THOSE PC FX GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Samurai Ghost]

Well, not to discourage you but getting to the level of being able to play through text heavy role-playing/adventure games in Japanese will take you at least a few years of dedicated study. The writing system is pretty tough! I'm fluent in Japanese and work as a translator but still have trouble with some text-heavy games. I mean, I can play them just fine, but if you want to understand every single thing it will take you a lot of time and effort. Which is totally worth it in my opinion!

My suggestion is to read some Japanese comics in Japanese once you get up to a decent level. Comics for younger audiences provide kana readings for all of the kanji compounds so it's easy to look up new words, and the pictures help with comprehension as well. I suggest reading the original Dragonball comics. They are easy to understand, and actually great comics!! The Dragonball Z anime is pretty lame in my opinion but the original comics are really funny adventure tales.

Also, if you are approaching kanji for the first time, many people swear by this method:
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/4889960759

A friend of mine learned kanji this way and I have to say his progress was a lot faster than my progress through college.

[Tatsujin]

don't get a rosetta stone

[Ji-L87]

Sooooo.... I've learned Hiragana and about 50 basic Kanji and some grammar and about 20 or so words.

Ok, one basic thing first: You should probably add Katakana to the list of things you need to learn. Thankfully, they're just as easy to learn as Hiragana - well, they're the same really, except for appearance.

As for studying, well, like Zeta, I would recommend somewhere where you can study with classmates and a teacher. I'm not too sure about those online-classes - I know I concentrate better on these things in a classroom. Or at least slack of less. Not to mention, having someone to talk to is very important.

But it seems you got into some kind of thing there, good luck!

One thing that may help is an electronic lexicon, the kind where you can draw the kanji you want to look up. If you have a Nintendo DS, there are quite a few lexicon and kanji-learning/remembering software available. I want to remember me and my classmates used to have this on our DSes: http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g-49-en-70-3jag.html

It's possible there are newer versions out but, something like that may come in handy.

One last important thing to remember is how spoken Japanese  differ in games/anime and movies/radio/TV. They speak much more clearly in anime/manga but in real life, they seem to love to speak fast and generally use ですね and it's variations a whole lot.
Hang in there!

[termis]

I lived in Japan for a year -- and during that time, I studied at least a couple hours a day, worked amongst mostly Japanese-only speaking co-workers, did two language exchage sessions a week, and regularly hung out with a Japanese crowd.  Not to mention, I'm Korean, so my pace for picking up the language was much quicker than most English-only speakers as grammar workings are almost identical between Korean & Japanese, and also and many Korean/Japanese words have the same roots (many kanji-based nouns) & similar pronunciation.

And after all that, I can just barely get thorough text-heavy games.  I can just make out the story of children's manga (with furigana).  And I can hold a light conversation.

Basically, I was in an immersion environment, studied quite a bit, and had some natural advantages, and I still probably have a good 2-3 more years of that before I'd be considered fluent enough to *natually* play text-heavy games.

Not to discourage you, but be realistic and look at this as a long-term project.  I've known exactly two individuals in my entire life that became rather good at Japanese without being in such an immersive environment I described above (These were seriously language-gifted folks).  Keep on doing what you're doing -- keep an interest in Japanese language & continue to dig away it.  But know that if you really want to get good, you either have to be basically super-devoted, and/or move to Japan for some time.

[Ji-L87]

And after all that, I can just barely get thorough text-heavy games.  I can just make out the story of children's manga (with furigana).

Oh, do I know what you mean...
When I studied the language we learned a whole lot of kanjis. Now, I can feel all that knowledge just dripping out through my ears - and I don't have the time/motivation needed to sit down with all the books/notes again when I'm not studying anymore. Quite the annoying feeling. : /

[Arkhan Asylum]

Get the Japanese From Zero! books, those manga that teach you how to moonrune, and get some early Japanese CRPGs and translate by hand as you play.   

http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Zero-Techniques-Students-Professionals/dp/0976998122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322056086&sr=8-1  I'm pissed they changed the covers.  My copy has some dorked out looking goon on the cover.

http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Mangaland-Learning-Marc-Bernabe/dp/4889961151/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1322056115&sr=8-6

Also, get the Kodansha Kanji Dictionary 9000, and lrn2skip.

http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary/dp/4770028555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322056141&sr=8-1

get a job at a Sushi place.  you'll learn how to talk.

[Edmond Dantes]

I'm trying to learn Japanese too, but lately I feel like I'm running up against a brick wall.  I've been playing [[http://lrnj.com Slime Forest Adventure]] to reinforce my lessons but honestly, I keep forgetting Kanji, or getting them mixed up.

And when I study in general, I keep losing interest, or feeling like its not sticking.  And I've tried classes, conversations, memorizing songs, translating import manga... its honestly got me worried that my brain might have a defect that prevents it from learning a foreign language.  I swear I would freaking do brain surgery on myself if that turned out to be the case...

So yeah, I want any advice you can give too.

[grahf]

http://ankisrs.net/
Use a good vocabulary program in addition to whatever else you're doing. This is the best there is.

[geise]

http://www.japanese-language.aiyori.org/index.html is a really good place to get started.  It's good for mainly the basics.  Sadly real interaction is going to be the best way, so like quite a few said classes are really going to be the best way.  From this site I have picked up Hiragana and Katakana very well.  This was with crazy dedication and repitition evey day for over a year.

[Ji-L87]

Some useful links:

Denshi Jisho
Nihongo Resources

[Samurai Ghost]

This is the best online Japanese-English dictionary. I use it all the time when I'm translating.

http://www.alc.co.jp/

Also those studying Japanese should also pick up plug-in for Firefox called Rikai-chan. When it's turned on a window pops up telling you the reading and meaning of any Japanese word you mouse over. With a fairly basic grasp of Japanese grammar you can understand almost any Japanese text via your browser. Another one I use all the time for translating.