joke subject line aside, i'm gonna struggle to get away from romaji. can anyone recommend me the appropriate programs and everything involved in language pursuit? should i get pimsleur AND rosetta stone?
I definitely want to get off on the right foot with this.
Pimsleur is focused on speaking. It's good, but not much in the way of reading and writing. Rosetta Stone is focused on Western European languages; it's approach is pretty poor when it comes to Japanese.
What helped me the most was Power Japanese, a CD-Rom program that's around $50 I think. You could find it off of Amazon--though, get it with a return policy in case it doesn't work with your computer (it's an old program). That, and playing old NES-era games in Japanese. KF
You should also move to Japan as well. Hehe, that would be the fastest way. No really, I just researched Power Japanese...All I can say is WOW. I am impressed. I think this is a really good tool. The only thing better might be an actual person...lol. Don't quote me on it though. Once you master Hiragana and Katakana, then comes the fun part!! Kanji!!!!! If you don't continue to read books and write essays then I don't know how you can remember Kanji. (Unless you live in Japan) Either way, have a great time learning. By the way, the more you study in your first year of study, the better you will become. If you obsess over it like I did, you can be fluent in speaking in only 3 years or less.
