For years, I have been interested in learning Japanese as a side project. Currently, I am a Graphic Design student, but I have a lot of free time on my hands and I would love to use that time to learn a new language. Unfortunately, after beginning my research a few months ago, I quickly became frustrated.
At the beginning of my endeavors, I purchased Human Japanese as an introductory course in Japanese. I was pleasantly surprised. However, it was fairly obvious that Human Japanese would not bring me anywhere near being fluent in the language, but I knew this from the start. I was okay with that. With that in mind, I was willing to make a major purchase of another program to learn more. After reading page after after of reviews of programs such as Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, JapanesePod101, etc., the frustration began.
I read mostly about Pimsleur. I was told by countless sources that Pimsleur was the most effective way to learn a new language. However, just before making the purchase of the Pimsleur program, I ran into a number of reviews that said otherwise. I was informed that while Pimsleur teaches Japanese, it simply is not enough to hold a long "normal" conversation in Japanese and that it's only "polite" Japanese. Is this true?
I was under the impression that a major purchase would at least give me the ability to watch a Japanese sitcom and understand most of what I hear (while filling in the blanks with a Japanese dictionary). However, with every program that I do research on, I am always told "It's just not good enough." I would really like to find out what is good enough. As I said before, I am willing to make a major purchase. However, I don't want to waste the money on something that is not going to get me very far.
So, to put my question in a nutshell... What would be the best purchase that I could make that would take me as far as possible and give me the ability to listen to a normal everyday Japanese conversation (not just polite) and understand most of what I hear (again using a Japanese dictionary to fill in the blanks for vocabulary)?
Thank you very much!
