interesting! you have plans of living in japan? i'm not planning to live there but i want to visit there as a tourist and experience their culture. :)

Question, you guys speak a lot of learning and stuff but you pretty much all suggest having a conversation with someone fluent so they can help you. I live in Oklahoma, I can guarantee there is NO ONE around here fluent in Japanese! lol, so what do I do?

Guh, i wish i could speak japanese. but it probably requires a lot of effort and work :'(

wish i could speak (and read) japanese just so i could understand the raw mangas and animes LOL:D

I love Japanese and I'd love to be able to speak it, though I only know the basics =[
Sorry I couldnt be much help but watch lots of anime and you'll find you'll pick things up easier =D

That is a good question ofcourse, how much does this help? When there are no people who speak Japanese around, it's better than nothing I suppose, but is it really a help to watch anime and watch Japanese movies with subtitles (which should always be done, but that's another thing) to improve vocabulary and help learn the language?

I have been taking Japanese for 6 years, and I still have trouble with it. There is poilte Japanese:
Hajimemashite yoroshiku onagaishimasu! Atashi wa Kaedaru desu~! Jyuukyuusai desu!! Atashi wa seito ga college desu. Shumi wa uten suru to yomu suru to e suru to uta suru..nantoka nantoka! Yoroshiku onagaishimasu!

And there is what I call "slang" japanese, or what you would use with everyone else that isn't a senior to you:
Oi~ minna!! Genki~? Kaedaru desyou!! Jyuukyuusai da!~ Seito ga college da. Ano...shumi wa uten toka yomu toka e toka uta toka..ano..nantoka! Hai~ Tomodachi wa sugoi! Jya~!.

Translation of first para: Nice to meet you! My name is Kaedaru. I am 19 years old. I am a student in college. My hobbies are driving, reading, drawing, songs, and many other things. Once again, it is nice to meet you!

Translation of second para: Hey guys! How are you? I'm Kaedaru! I'm 19, and a college student. Well, um...my hobbies are driving, reading, drawing and songs and..a bunch of other crap. Yea! My friends are great (amazing). See ya!

Er..from personal experiance..don't ever talk slang to a Japanese who is older then you...even if it's by a few years. Haha, but Yuki and Jun, and Hitomi and I didn't care one bit!!! Ahahaa..

arigatou~ honto ni domo argiatou minna

jya-

kaedaru.

Same here I've been taking japanese for about 5 years and it's still kicking my butt :confused: hahha but i love it with a passion and academics does not come easy to me :chikasfrown: meaning i have to work harder just to prove myself!! heheh and sometimes i find myself studying even harder than others heheh but it kinda sucks at times when u hav friends that they don't have to study as hard but still get good grades hehhe or better grades than me :rolleyes: hehe but i still love japan and without it i would feel as if there's something missing in my life :coldbear:

>Atashi wa seito ga college desu. Shumi wa uten suru to yomu suru to e suru to uta suru..nantoka nantoka!

Hmm...I'd say

(W)atashi wa daigaku sei desu. Shumi wa unten suru koto, hon o yomu koto, utau koto, e o kaku koto...nado desu!


>Seito ga college da. Ano...shumi wa uten toka yomu toka e toka uta toka..ano..nantoka! Hai~ Tomodachi wa sugoi!

Forget about 'Seito ga college da/desu'. It just doesn't make sense.
I'd say

daigaku sei da yo. Ano/eeto..Shumi wa unten toka, hon o yondari, e o kaitari,..eeto...hoka nimo iroiro! Hai~

etc...

それ４年前のカキコなんですが～。
すんまへんなあ、うるさいお兄さんで。

I started learning japanese 6 weeks ago and i can write hiragana and katakana.
I can build easy sentences. Like go shoping, asking for direction, presenting others and my self and talk little about me.

On the hearing part i can make sence of fluent speaking japanese because im so used to hear it because i listen alot on japanese music and watch anime alot. So i actually can hear the difference between words. I dont know what it means but i can hear and think. "That is a word, i wonder what it means".

And the speaking... lets say... i have hade English classes in schools since 2nd grade thats 11 years of English classes. And im not fully comfturble speaking it.
But i think thats because i speak it so rarely.

And in my oppinion its hard to train on the speech part. None of my friends can Japanese and the only time i can talk its on my Japanese classes.
Which are 1 and a ½ hour once a week.