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It helps building a general understanding of the language, and you can probably recognize some words or even complete sentences after a while. Still, to fully learn Japanese, do a language course (or even several, with increasing difficulty), go to a school where they teach it or read books about it.
And there is another, perhaps more helpful way. I learned English through a combination of watching a lot of cartoons (which weren't subtitled or dubbed) and by having my Dutch aunt send me English-Dutch letters from the USA. I think I could speak and write English fluently when I was around 10 years old this way, and I was virtually unsurpassed in my language skills for a very long time (and still am, as far as my relatives are concerned). If you can find someone in Japan who is willing to correspond with you in both his and your language on a regular basis (my aunt would send me letters at least once a month), you could have a basic understanding of the language relatively quick*.
Still, do not expect to master Japanese (or any language) in a few months or so. I needed 5 or so years to get my English to the point where it is now and you must practice (reading and/or writing) the language on pretty much a daily basis, else you will take even longer, or might not even master it at all.
And as said, start at the basics. No use in trying to translate words if you don't know how to write them in Japanese. Learning hiragana is a must, I'd say learning katakana is also pretty much mandatory, seeing as how Japanese has lots of loan words. Once you know that, move on to kanji. Usually, by that time, you'll have learned to recognize a few and what they mean.
*I forgot to mention that it probably helps if you ask him/her not to write kanji right away, else you won't understand any of it. You could try and ask to have him/her write in romaji or hiragana first and work your way up from there.
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