As a linguist in training and novice Japanese learner myself, I can say with confidence that the Rosetta Stone is NOT the way to go. Simply put, it doesn't work. It MIGHT be a good supplement for a language closer to English, but not Japanese. It certainly will not help a novice. Here's what I suggest:
1. First off, you have to learn hiragana and katakana (though hiragana is more useful). Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hiragana and start memorizing them. Here's a site that does flash cards with romaji: http://www.manythings.org/q/kana.php?u=hiragana. It is important that as soon as you know the hiragana, you start thinking of all Japanese writing in terms of hiragana rather than with Latin characters.
2. After you feel comfortable with hiragana and katakana, go to http://www.guidetojapanese.org - this is a very thorough and helpful page on Japanese grammar. Study it well, and use as a reference. You'll never want to use another site. Another helpful site is http://www.epochrypha.com/japanese/verbs/verbs.html. This site will provide you with the ways to conjugate regular Japanese verbs, so that you can always have a handy reference on which form to use.
3. While you study the grammar, go back to www.readthekanji.com and set JLPT 4 as a set. This is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level 4 kanji and word list, and it will be useful to study. Unfortunately, the JLPT isn't perfect in that it teaches you more garbage words at first (like how to say "nth day of the month") that aren't very useful to novices. So, in supplement, you may also want to study this page: http://smart.fm/lists/23108-japanese-core-2000-step-1-kanji-focus - as it contains more useful words. Higher levels of the JLPT have more useful words, but you've gotta start somewhere. Obviously, move on up the more you complete it.
4. Configure your computer to type Japanese characters. You can do this by enabling the IME. Go to control panel, regional and language options, and then the languages tab, and check "install files for East Asian languages." After you've installed it, click the details button on the same tab, click add, then add Japanese. You should be capable of typing in Japanese now. Here are the hotkeys for the IME:
Alt+Shift: Switch between languages (in your case, English and Japanese)
Ctrl+CapsLock: Switch to hiragana (when in Japanese, of course)
Alt+CapsLock: Switch to katakana (when in Japanese, again)
When you've typed a Japanese word, press space to bring up a list and convert it to the proper kKanji.
5. If you want to customize your own flash cards rather than use readthekanji (which is also a good idea, as some contend that flash cards which you've created yourself tend to be better than premade ones), you can use mnemosyne (www.mnemosyne-proj.org/) or Anki (ichi2.net/anki/). They're pretty equal on functionality.
6. Most importantly, EXPERIENCE Japanese. Studying a grammar text and memorizing kanji can only do so much, and in practical use, you'll sound incredibly stiff and unnatural. You have to read Japanese texts - even if it's just trying to read the comments on a YouTube video or something (though, as in English, the quality of language is kind of low on YouTube, but you get the point). You've gotta get out there and experience the material more than studying it.
Here is a useful Firefox plugin: http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/ - it will allow you to mouse over Japanese words that you don't remember so that you can better understand the sentence. Try not to rely on it too much, though!
Finally, this forum is more about personal life problems and getting support in difficult or confusing times in life. This thread is more suited to the general forum, so I'm moving it there.
Good luck!
edit: readthekanji doesn't provide you with romaji entries for the hiragana, so I've been told, making it useless for that. I've amended the section recommending that. |
.
