learning to speak Japenese

[mimififi]

Hi there
I was just wondering if any one could recommend to me a course of study for learning to speak japenese. Any books or audio language courses that come with recommendation are most welcome.

Also, has anyone used RossettaStone? Are they worth the money?

We have a japenese tutor, but I was looking for some extra books and stuff especially for my young children to improve our japenese more quickly.

many thanks
mimififi

[Clanad]

Check this site, mimi.. I've had good results for Hebrew and Gaelic. Your pursuit of Japanese (or any oriental language) is daunting and to be admired. There are over 25,000 word charcters in the "old style" of Japanese writing. Fortunately, they modernized the script and many fewer characters are needed to comprehend the language.... still, quite difficult for the western, Latinized mind, in my opinion...

http://www.word2word.com/coursead.html

[mimififi]

Hi Clanad, I'll check out that site. Thank you for your, as always, useful and informative response.

We have learned all of the Hiragana alphabet and can read words using that. The katakana is more taxing and Kanji even more so.

It is vocab and simple sentences we need most help with. My husband also is interested in learning Business japanese as he works with Asia pacific offices frequently.

You're right.....it's very trixy, but then again, my brain finds most things trixy!!!!!!!!

[JohnnyHawaii]

There is a pretty good language program called "Before You Know It!", It's free, just download it and whichever language pack you want. I used it to brush up on my Italian and was pleased with it. Good luck.

[mimififi]

Hi JohnnyH. I'll check that out. It looks great. thank you for taking time to reply, I really appreciate.

Domo arigato Gozimas!
(Don't have the Hiragano enabled on my keyboard yet,sorry!)