What are some good language learning tips and courses?

Pimsleur never did any good for me :(

I recommend listening to http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php

,also listening to anime or reading japanese blogs on the internet will help.

Hi there,

I speak five languages and from my own experience can suggest you to read as many books in Japanese as possible (that helps enormously). Also listen to Japanese songs, write down the lyrics, learn them, translate and memorize the unknown words - that's an amazing tool, trust me! You can do the same by reading some articles, etc about subjects that interest you. Find a Japanese friend just to practice the spoken part of the language, go to Japanese chat rooms, explore the language in your daily life, try to think in Japanese, look around yourself and constantly describe what you see, etc If you follow my advice, you notice a massive improvement within a couple of months. Good luck!

Most points have already been made, but just to emphasize:

-Language is meant as a tool for communication. So communicate! Listen to as much as you can, preferably as naturally as you can. If you're a beginner, educational shows, kids shows and day-time drama are good introductions.

-Read tons of stuff, and don't read for comprehension at first, but for vocab and grammar. Take stuff that's useful to you and use it use it use it.

-When developing vocab, build lexical sets. Think about what kind of topics you will need or want to talk about, and make groups of vocab words, grammar points and expressions that will be of use when discussing those topics. Say you're really into movies. If you're studying Japanese you might want to learn:

ー 俳優 (haiyuu, actor)

ー　女優 (joyuu, actress)

ー　監督 (kantoku, director)

ー　映画 (eiga, movie/film)

ー　有名 (yuumei, famous)

ー　やる (yaru, show, play)

ー　演じる (enjiru, act)

etc. etc.

- Get over yourself! The one biggest stumbling block I had was that I felt like I had to get everything right and right away. I worried about bothering other people and forgetting things I had just studied and saying things that people didn't understand or took the wrong way. It happens! There's no way to avoid it. So have fun with it. Make millions of mistakes.

-I've never checked it out myself but I've heard the Rosetta Stone is excellent.

Lots of practice in actual speaking and don't be afraid to make mistakes. If male, be careful not to learn "female" Japanese. Have a friend whose girlfriend is Japanese and it cracks me up when he speaks Japanese because it is very feminine.

Try a software call Rosetta Stone. They have many languages to choose from.

I guess learning a language is like learning any other skills, you have to practise and use it, or you will lose it.

Find and create as much opportunity to use it. Don't be embarass about your grammer or vocabulary. With courage comes progress.

Good luck and sayonara.

www.google.com/language_tools