[godwine]

Rosetta is not totally useless, for most, a second (or third+) language is learn by visual relation, and then the rest is just practice reading, writing and hearing. I think you need to take several path to start

1. Get a really good book, as suggested previously, scools here uses Japanese for Busy people. I find that an extremely easy book to follow

2. Wikipedia has a complete Hirgana and Katakana table, study that

3. Do a search on google for Japanese grammars and particles. Read up on a couple of articles, that will help you understand the basic form

4. get a phrase book to start learning simple sentences, if you took my suggestion for point 1, it will already have plenty of sentences exercise.

5. Get some Japanese magazine, have a good dictionary handy and start reading the magazine, again, I find automotive magazine fairly heplfu. Fashion magazine as well

6. Take up on maxful's suggestion of taking a beginners class

Think of how immigrants learn English, most of us are only beginners in English when we first landed (Yes English is not my first language, and yes I am in a country that uses English), and we mostly learn by "forced exposure"