Before I became interested with Korea (because of the Hallyu wave), I was into anime. I grew up watching it. When the time came that episodes were available for viewing and downloading in the internet, I started to watch animes without dubs, just the Japanese subs.

With every anime episode that I watched, certain words and phrases started to become familiar to my ears like sugoi desu ka, hai, and kawaii, to name a few. 

I became really interested in learning the language. First, I memorized the Hiragana characters. Learning the pronunciation of each symbol was alright, but the tricky part is writing them with the correct strokes. xD

Also, I enrolled at Livemocha, a free social language-learning site that teaches the language through exercises and flash cards. Users also have the option to chat with people to help them learn their chosen language. The site has a feature, 'suggested learning partners', which is connecting you to fellow livemocha users with same language preferences as yours. I find this feature extremely useful, especially in search for native speakers of the languages that you want to learn.

I nearly gave up at this part. Actually I think I did, because I did not progress anymore from this point. :p

After months, I  am refreshing my brain of certain Japanese skills that it already has. There are lots of tutorials there actually. As for me, I downloaded HJ Lite, a free Android application that teaches the language.

It uses a lecture type of approach in teaching the language. Lessons are divided into chapters. There are also sections on Quizzes, Dictionary, and Preferences. Audio clips on the correct pronunciations are readily available and can be accessed easily within the program.

After this, I am planning to read some more of those free tutorials. :)

(image credits:  talksushi.com,  japancast.net, argilmore.com)