Hey Lizzie!
I am Nyago from Bulgaria.
I was studying Japanese for about 7 months (from October 2009 to May 2010) and I cud tell you it's quite impossible to learn Japanese outside Japan for that time. Actually there was a research on which is the hardest language to learn for a native English speaker, and it proved to be Japanese, with an average period of 88 weeks required for you to be able to lead a normal everyday conversation and to be able to go out in Japan on your own without worries about the language barrier.
Of course you must be really determined if you wanna study Japanese, because I assure you it is extremely different from both English and French (and Spanish, Russian or whatever language you have encountered up to now)
Good luck!
Nyago