About Japanese Language

Well, I am mexican and I am very interested in studying Japanese. I know that there are some topics about this in the forum. But I would like to know if anybody has any suggestion in how to start to learn Japanese (books, CDs, etc). I really appreciate your help and suggestions.

Ivan

hi, im learning japanese too, i bought many books but realise most of them taught you the very formal way of speaking.(which will be a little weird when you speak with a japanese)
Until....i saw this good book "Making out in japanese" its pink in colour, there are alot of phrases inside which are quite useful. u can give it a try. i bought 2 books on that and i guess my japanese kinda improve quite alot! ^-^

good luck!

It would be weirder for you to use the phrases in "Making Out in Japanese" than the formal language from the textbooks...

Even though this will be a somewhat business-oriented book series, "Japanese for Busy People I" gives you a good start, it provides explanation in English, and it also has CD set, if you do not have any school that offers Japanese language.

As a first book, I would definitely *not* recommend the "Making Out..." book. Indeed, this is a phrase book to begin with, and while it may be fun to some people, it does not give you any solid grammar and vocabulary foundation.

You might find other textbooks "too formal," but you will need to learn the "...masu" (polite speech) as well as "...ru" (familiar/informal speech), because in many sentence structures you will be using those forms combined in everyday language anyway.

I want to thank the responses you have told me. I would like to learn the formal way of speaking Japanese.
Thanks