[Joyfulldreams]

I have been trying to teach myself Japanese for a looong while. I would love to take a class on Japanese somewhere, but my high school doesn't have a course for it (only Spanish and French...I HATE my Spanish teacher). I am planning on taking one at my local community college during next summer. If I had the time to do it after school before then, I would, but I don't.

Either way, I've been wanting to try and use reading Japanese as a way to help me practice. I am pretty sure that when Japanese is written horizontally, it is read from left to right, and when written vertically, is read from right to left. Correct me if I am wrong.

I cannot do this EITHER, as my STUPID computer doesn't support Japanese characters. T_T Nor do I know any kanji and I don't know Japanese punctuation.

Could somebody give me the basics, but make it so that my stupid computer can show me something besides '?????' Or maybe possibly offer me some guidance as to the learning of the language? I am advanced in English and would love to help anybody who needs help with it.