On a lighter note, Hello! I'm somewhat new to cruncyroll and figured this would be a fantastic place to communicate with people from Japan/those interested in Japanese culture/language. I'm currently putting a pretty hefty amount of time into learning the holy grail of all languages, Japanese!... and am loving every minute of it.

Btw.. I'm sorry if this a repeat topic, but again, I'm a newbie to Crunchyroll. So I get some sort of newbie exoneration, right?!

Anywho! To the point.. I guess my question//statement for this discussion is how far along are you in your pursuit to learning the Japanese language. Also, what are you folks using to learn the language (besides Anime of course) ??
:p

I think I learned Japanese when I was three I think you need advice from non-Japanese

are there Japanese language schools in your area?

About 5 years now that I think about it. It's been a little slow on my part because I've been juggling medical school and self-studying it at the same time. My proficiency is probably somewhere around JLPT2 (haven't taken the exams yet, but I'm pretty sure I could pass JLPT3), but I've still got quite a way to go because I'm aiming for technical proficiency.

My sources are mixed. I have to say my favorite would be O'Neill's Essential Kanji and, just recently, a very OLD copy of a chamberlain publication on Colloquial Japanese. But if you were to ask me if I were a "minna" or a "genki" baby, I'm actually a "genki" baby. I enjoyed that latter more because the former was made for business and whatnot.

Well I took some classes in my old University ... My professor was a native Japanese speaker. Maybe you should get a tutor or something or you can search for schools near you who provide the classes or buy some books that can help too

www.guidetojapanese.com provides the essentials you need. They have forums and many fluent speakers.

seems like there are a lot of non-japanese people on CR then japanese. just saiyan.

im in though, i want to learn japanese and korean... for music mainly.

That's because there's not much merit for a Japanese person to join the site in the first place - primarily because they CANNOT avail of the streaming services provided by CR.

A great way to learn, and the way I started learning, is to find a copy of My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS. You start out with a quick test to see how much you already know and then go from there. It teaches both writing and speaking and I never found it moving too fast. I bring up that point because I'm from a small town and didn't have a class available to me when I first started.
There are also lots of video Podcasts from students in Japan, so you can get a feel for the flow of the language and its real world applications.

I'm also available if you like. I stumble through my spelling a bit so I'm not sure how much help I'll actually be.

ok a site that i like a lot is Fluent in 3 months basic how to learn any language in 3 months flat

links to help you
http://www.fluentin3months.com/category/tools/
Pimp out your browser searches for language learning etc

http://www.fluentin3months.com/how-to-speak-a-language-pretty-well-starting-from-scratch-in-just-two-months/
How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months: gives you a over view

http://www.fluentin3months.com/language-hacking-links/
Ideas for mnemonics: just that along is gold

http://www.fluentin3months.com/resources/
The Language Hacking Guide

as for places to find a person to hold a conversion with
Livemocha https://www.livemocha.com/
also you can connect useing facebook

littlelostkitten (why you lost btw ) said to get my Japanese coach for the Nintendo ds while i did not find that on this site it does have a lot of Japanese study aids. http://www.jlist.com/category/17422 btw i should warn you it also has adult stuff as well

well that about it let me know if you need anything else pm me any time i will see what i can do

@bzald Cool

i started to watch japanese dramas a few months ago and got stuck to then...and i just kindov picked some japanese from thre. Aslo, try the rocket japanese course by sayaka it available online. google it. all in all, im still new to tjis stuff
i know a very litte bit of japanese but enough to survive if i go japan lol.

Thanks for all the great advise so far ladies and gents'! Keep up the good work, btw feel free to chat me, or add me as a friend (sorry if I'm using FB lingo here, but I'm not so sure of the correct CR terminology) if you're interested in chatting about Japan. My Japanese is limited but I'd like to begin some sort of basic conversation in Japanese.

Regardless, you can't learn without day-to-day repetition, or so I'm told! :p

This site is great for learning Japanese .
Thanks for sharing . . .