How do I learned Japanese

My university doesn't offer this language, and I don't want to wait until graduate school to learn it under the assumption both that I will go to graduate school and that they will offer it where I choose to go.

I'm just curious, are there any good self-study programs I could work on for a year that would allow me to be the equal of someone who studied the language for one year in high school?

Ironically, there is a study abroad program in Japan which requires some experience with the language (using the example I used above as its own example of how much) even though they do not offer classes in it.

this site has everything (almost)
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html#contents

buy a furigana dictionary too

its pretty hard to learn without a teacher

also you need to be able to speak and hear it as often as you can

>>2
its pretty hard to learn without a teacher

No, it's not.

"How to Learn Any Language Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively,Enjoyably and On Your Own" by Barry Farber will teach you everything you need to know about self-teaching any language, and what's more, how you self-teach a language well.

>>3
you must be an anime expert ^^ desu
have you actually got any evidence to prove that?
Without a teacher there is a greater chance you will teach yourself outdated and incorrectly

Recommending this excellent book, a semi-technical introduction to Japanese grammar. Not for total beginners. If you never knew what masu was, or that ぬ and ん are negatives equivalent to ない, then check it out.

http://www.nihongoresources.com/media/An%20introduction%20to%20Japanese.pdf

Rikaichan is massively useful (essential, actually) if you surf Japanese sites. http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/

kantango.com is for selecting and creating vocabulary lists: it imports all data from edict and allows creation of flashcards and quizzes from your lists. You can also access others' (public) lists.

If you're starting out, go grab the textbooks (Genki is probably a good bet) and vocabulary lists from one of those big Japanese learning materials torrents. And actually use them.

Finally, #japanese and #learnjapanese on Rizon are very good for asking questions and practicing. The Guide To Japanese forums (>>2) are great for asking questions, and there's a hell lot of useful discussions archived there.

>>5
だれでも先生なし頑張れます。実は、クラスは必要ではないし、弱い者だけそんなことを利用していると思います。僕は完璧じゃなくて、毎日いっしょうけんめいに勉強していますよ。

そしてアニメがダイキライ！！例外は「あずまんが大王」で、大好き☆

>>6
Listen to this man!

Thanks, everyone. I didn't really seriously expect to receive constructive answers by this point, but I guess Anonymous does deliver sometimes.

>>2, thanks for the site, it seems like a great resource, although it's annoying how the writer uses kanji expecting you to look them up, which seems inefficient when he could just put up the furigana and put the meaning in parentheses or something the first time he uses them.

As to >>6, I actually have grabbed a 10GB pack of Japanese learning junk and downloaded the book from NR, as well as installing rikaichan.

I'm kind of creeping myself out in going this far to just participate in a program for one year that isn't even relevant to my major, but hey, I've got to soothe my inner weeaboo sometime and I might as well before I'm tied down with a serious job.

>>8
The author of that site has mouseover Javascript for his sentences, I believe. Also, with Rikaichan, it becomes an absolute non-issue.

If you put in a decent amount of effort in really studying the language on your own over a year, you'll be able to pick up a lot more stuff in Japan if you do the exchange. Good luck.

>>8
all those resources aside, you still need someone who speaks it natively or some who has a solid grip on Japanese to understand it. hence you usually have a teak of 2 - 4 people working on subtitles or document translations (depending on the size) 2 would be Japanese and 2 would be English speakers.

don't try and learn from anime till you have the basics down
>>6
thank you much for rikaichan

>>7
lol touche
you are pretty good without a teacher.

っ越しました