I'm actually following japanese classes right now and I have to say it IS DAMN HARD.
The japanese use on average three times as much words as the english to say the same, the words mostly sound like gibberish and the sentence structure is completely messed up. And don't get me started on the kanji and kana's...
To be honest : if you really wanna learn japanese you should realise it will take you YEARS to be decent at it, also it's a language that requires DAILY study (just because it is so completely different). I personally admire (no worship) anyone who can learn that language oin his own, from my personal experience i have to say that the "jap for starters" books they sell are handy to use while taking some serious class but they cannot replace that class...
However I'd say if you really wanna learn it, give it a try, don't give up too soon: it's one of the hardest languages to master (or so our teacher keeps telling me) but I find it very rewarding.
Enough ranting, time to watch tsukihime
