Good aids to learning japanese, books etc?

Question:

Hi,

I am currently teaching myself japanese and I have finished my current iPad App. (It was very useful actually)
I have a good grasp of the markers, wa, de / desu, o, ni, (For both time and place)

What sort of books could I look for next? I guess i am still a beginner, but I do have a basic understanding. Can anyone recommend any work books to help teach me? OR even any software to download :) I looked at rosetta stone, but it looks a bit expensive, and I am unsure whether it will be very good.

Any help apprieciated :D

Chris

Answer:

The following websites are the best websites for the following reasons,

http://www.123japanese.com

- Teaches FULL Japanese lesson free
- Polite, Casual and slang Japanese (all Japanese)
- Fully explains lessons
- Teaches kanji and kana aswell
- Has video lessons
- Books, vocabulary lists and verb lists to give you more info
- A forum to ask questions
- Lots of study materials

They also have a youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/123japanesecom



http://www.japanesepod101.com

- Has many lessons and study aids
- polite and casual Japanese
- unfortunately not free, you only get 1 week free trial (but just keep signing up with fake email)


http://www.maggisensei.com

- It teaches random lessons
- Detailed lessons on wide variety of topics
- Casual and polite Japanese
- You can find a lot of stuff here you wont find anywhere else



What to stay away from.

- books. : books only teach polite Japanese and usually have general translations rather than explanations. Polite Japanese isn't even used in casual speach, and books don't have a lot of information.

- Websites with not a lot of explanations: when learning a language, its easyer if you get a good detailed explanation on the translation of something because a lot of times, something can't be directly translated.