New to the Language and Eager to Learn

Hello!

I've recently begun studying Japanese, but I'm afraid my studies so
far have just been hiragana and a few choice words and phrases
courtesy of Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur.


Just from the small amount of time I've spent with these programs,
I understand that they're not really what I need. I would like to learn
around native speakers and those with similar interests so that when
I finally go to Japan I won't be so awkward.


I found this forum via google tonight and thought I would hang out here
a while and see how your community was. If you have any advice it
would be more than appreciated.

I look forward to learning from/with you,
Ocha

Sorry to say, but you'll be awkward no matter what when you first go over there, whether that be in the language or your cultural faux pas.

But, I would suggest getting a textbook, such as the Genki series. There are also tons of free alternatives online, one I particularly recommend is Tae Kim's grammar guide. In my opinion he does a good job of explaining the finer points and has some good examples.

You may also want to try downloading a free flash card program called Anki. You can either make your own stacks or download tons of free ones people have made. They have stacks for JLPT vocab, kanji, sentences, etc.

Lang-8 is another good one. It let's you write diaries in the language you are learning that native speakers will correct. In turn, you can also correct their entries that they write in your native tongue.

Apart from all those I would just recommend immersing yourself in as much Japanese as possible, whether that be TV, music, newspapers, blogs, whatever. Keyhole TV is a free program that lets you stream Japanese TV. Naturally, you won't understand much at first but as you learn more you'll naturally develop your skills just from hearing the same phrases over and over.

Wow, thanks very much for the reply! I'll look into all of that.

I purchased a Japanese-English, English-Japanese Dictionary by Random House with Romaji, Kanji, and Kana. I also picked up a textbook called "Beginning Japanese" by Tuttle. It seems to be a really nice book so far. It promises to teach about 150 Kanji in the first volume, so if this goes well I'll use the whole series.

Don't fall for the common error of thinking the number of kanji learned is an indicator of the amount of Japanese learned or the degree of proficiency with the language.

Kanji is a part of the system of writing the language; it is not the language itself. There are people who have a good command of Japanese whose kanji knowledge is sparse. And there are people who go hog wild studying kanji whose Japanese is crap. A balanced approach, learning kanji in context, is best.

I will try to keep my studies balanced.