[eako]

I tried the trial of rossetta Stone and it was a nightmare T.T

I use... JapanPod101.com for listening to the eps, but they give you a /lot/ of emails. I find it good and easy, as the presenters have fun at the same time. Negative: only for speaking Japanese, as its audio based unless you go to the website and download the Character breakdown for that lesson >.<

Positive: It gives you many different scenarios, with different accents to the speakers. One guy is italian, speaking Japanese... so naturally that is different from some of the native Japanese speakers. Other situations reflect the company, From a couple on Holiday at Christmas, to a group of co-workers in the office. Obviously I haven't heard all of the episodes, but on a 2 part ep, it has 2 Eels speaking with one another about Japan. Very silly Eels if you hear the convo yourself, but Eels non the less.

I use Byki for the Characters too, But I find it's a little confusing at times, so I open up a Text documents and wright out what I hear and see in Romaji using Hiragana? (don't know if that makes sense, my language is sucky poo at the moment T.T) >.<

I hope this helps I really do.

One other thing I did, was print the characters, the romaji and the translation in lines, and stick it on the wall in front of the toilet. It makes learning Japanese a lot easier, and faster, and helped me retain some of the chars i know, as I'm still a noob T.T

Wow... long post X3