Topic: I'm attempting to learn Japanese, but what is the best way to do it?

Hello everyone, a bit of background about myself. I'm a 16 year old student in the U.S., and one of the few things I enjoy more than playing Nintendo games is learning. Especially languages. I've taken two years of Spanish so far, I take German lessons after school, and though it's temporarily been put on hold, I'm also teaching myself Russian. I have plans to teach myself Latin in the future. But for the time being, I'm trying to get into Japanese. But like anyone who's never studied an Asian language before, it's a tad daunting.

Basically, my question is this; What is the best way for someone in my position to learn it? Answers from people who went through a similar process would be preferrable, but any help is appreciated. So far, I've been using the website "www.freejapaneselessons.com," and while it's okay as a beginner, it just doens't seem quite right. So far, I've barely started memorizing Hirakana. It's going at an okay pace, but any way to speed it up would be great. I'm a rather impatient person at times.

Thanks in advance.

Pay for lessons.

Or some quality software. The above comment is the best answer though.

You can always look into your local community college and see if they offer Japanese I know the one I am attending does.

The "local" community college is over twenty miles away, and I can't drive. Unless you were implying I could attend it for a full two years. In which case, I plan on going to a four year college right away, as I am going into theoretical physics. In such a field, you can get a lot farther along by skipping that step.

As for paying for lessons, even if I had a consistent schedule, there is no one in my area who could offer lessons. In fact, I don't think there is even anyone in the area who knows any Japanese.

if you have a smartphone there are some good japanese learning apps. i studied japanese for 3 years in college and 1 semester at a college in tokyo, and while living there i learned way more than i did studying it for 3 years in the US. Does your high school have a study abroad program? if you're really serious about learning Japanese, there's no better way than to go to Japan.

also btw "Hirakana" does not exist. there are 3 sets of written japanese characters: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Knowing Hiragana and Katakana will be enough for you to read a japanese menu or simple manga, but if you hope to read a newspaper or a textbook you need to know several hundred Kanji. Also, Hiragana and Katakana are pronounced the same, but written differently.

Rosetta Stone.

Well if you are planning to go to college after high school than you might as well just wait till than and see if the school you are looking into has Japanese.

Ah, sorry about that, I made a typo. I did in fact mean to type "Hiragana," but I guess I missed. Thanks, though.

Anyways, I wish I was able to study abroad, but it's not an option here. I did know about the similarities of Hiragana and Katakana, but I don't know much about Kanji. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that set come from Chinese? It seems to me that they are full words, not just characters. I really don't understand how it works, but then, I haven't even started studying it yet. Is it often used in Japanese video games? It sure would be nice to buy a $40 dollar copy of MOTHER 2 rather than a $150 copy of Earthbound this summer.

Silly.
The Rosetta stone only has Heiroglyphic, Demotic and Ancient Greek not Japanese.

Software doesn't give you accurate feedback on pronunciation so a proper course is best even if it's by correspondence. I studied beginners french that way in High School. Those teach yourself japanese computer programs are a waste of money unless used to complement actual training.

Yeah, I've demoed Rosetta Stone for German, and it wasn't my preferred way to learn. It doesn't seem like it would be much of a full course, either.

As for "teach yourself" programs, that's why I'm only reading the free ones. I'm rather good at teaching myself languages, but I'm not willing to spend money on course after course until I find a good one.

If you're serious about learning Japanese the best (and only, in my experience) way to learn it is to find yourself a Japanese person and practice. Or pack yourself off to Japan. A distant third would be to do a formal course in Japanese. One with a professional teacher and proper resources. There's no way a free Website or free tools can provide a language education. You get what you pay for.

Stop pronouncing "L"'s.

This is exactly why I hate online forums. You say "Nobody here speaks Japanese" and they say "Go find a Japanese person".
Nevertheless, my advise would be to find a course book that they use in a Japanese course and go loan it from your local library. If they don't have any,you might want to buy one from a book store or online. I don't guarantee anything about this book, but it looks like exactly what you're looking for.
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Demystified-A-Self-Teaching-Gu...
It's not a book they would use in a class but according to the comments it is perfect for you.

This is exactly why I hate online forums. You ask for the best way to learn Japanese and then proceed to tell everyone that you're not interested in the best way to learn Japanese at all.

But what would I know? After all, it's not like I've learned Japanese and learned through hard experience what the best way to do that is.

Oh wait.

... Going back to the original poster's question: if you want to learn Japanese wait until you're in a position where you can associate with Japanese or, even better, spend substantial time in Japan. That is the best way to learn the language. Using books, free websites or almost anything else is just going to be frustrating, and quite likely teach you the wrong things. I had to unlearn a lot of book learning when I started using Japanese in conversational settings.

Actually, this book would be even better since it has a CD and that last one might not be the best place to start, but you get the idea. There are lots of books on the matter that are relatively cheap. http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Dummies-AUDIO-Eriko-Sato/dp/07...

While i've heard that by just eating heaps of Sushi you'd learn Japanese in no time i wouldn't recommend it. It had a lot of effects on me but sadly didn't improve my language skills.

Hire a good Japanese nanny, fire up the ol' time machine and send her back to the past, back when you were a baby, instruct her to teach you Japanese as a second language and to protect you from the time ninjas whose job it is to kill you to fix the timeline...

Passing on a message from someone who swears by this for the poster:

can you recommend to a beginner student of Japanese in the general discussion of the forums an awesome program called 'Human Japanese'? It's a neat language-teaching program for beginners learning...Japanese.