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[sethness]

Check out my personal homepage at www.LearningJapanese.net

At the bottom of the first page is a list of links to learning Japanese, including links to a handful of books at www.Amazon.com

I'd consider the "Collins Shubun English-Japanese dictionary" (not the little "gem" version bu tthe full-size large pocket edition) to be ABSOLUTELY essential. It's quite a good book, much better than any other dictionary that I've tried. (I've been learning Japanese about 10 years.)

The website itself ( www.LearningJapanese.net ) is mostly a bunch of cartoons I wrote to help people to visually remember two of the Japanese alphabets: Hiragana and Katakana. This would be an excellent starting point for your studies...and kinda fun, too.

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Tips:
1) the words are gonna sound like a bunch of random sounds. To help you remember them, make up silly stories. For example, if you want to remember that "shorts (pants)" is "han-zubon" in Japanese, use the silly story "I put my HANDS UPON (han-zubon) my shorts." To remember "fish = sakana", you could use the silly story "Oh, yuck ! He wants me to SUCK ON A (sakana) fish !!!"

2) Label everything in your house. Start with nouns. Walk around your house and TALK OUT LOUD. Try to recall the names of things before you see them. Reward yourself.
Later, after you've mastered the nouns, write adjectives.... then verbs. Finally, write full sentences. Like, on your refrigerator you'd write "I open the cold refrigerator."
This system WORKS.

3) Find "quiet time" to study. Put charts to read & test yourself near the toilet, above the bathtub, on the wall near your bed. Bring flash-cards on the bus when you go to work. Reward yourself somehow.

4) Once you get to japan, hook up with the free Japanese lessons group at your local Community Activity Center (run by the government). These halls are called "kouminkan" and "shuukaishou".