Trying to learn Japanese

[Esper]

This is a very n00bish question, but which written form is the most common? For example, do most Japanese video games use Kanji, or Hirigana? I only ask because I plan to put my reading skills to the test by playing imported games and reading manga as I learn.

They aren't used separately except in the case of young children (and learners like us) who will usually learn the hiragana for words before learning the kanji for them (or not, if the word is simply in hiragana normally). You won't see sentences and paragraphs written completely in kanji. Even newspaper headlines will throw in a few particles ("of, "for" and those kinds of words) and they'll be in hiragana.

Here's a simple example sentence of what I mean.

彼女は鍵をポケットに入れた。
(She put the key in her pocket.)
​

It includes hiragana,
彼女は鍵をポケットに入れた。

katakana,
彼女は鍵をポケットに入れた。

and kanji.
彼女は鍵をポケットに入れた。

Katakana isn't as common since it's usually used for loan words. Hiragana is the most important one to learn since it can stand in for kanji when someone doesn't want to use kanji for a word for whatever reason. Like here:

彼女は鍵をポケットに入れた。
かのじょはかぎをポケットにいれた。

​

These two sentences are pronounced exactly the same even though they're written differently.

tl;dr hiragana is most common, but almost everything still has kanji.

 

[Furanty]

In mangas and child-related media Furigana is used. Furigana is not a writing system by its own. It's Hiragana used above Kanji if the text is written horizontally and right beside a Kanji if the text is written vertically. Furigana denotes the reading of the Kanji. This is important for children. So, they can use Kanji in passive language and ease into Kanji. It's also important, because most Kanji does have more than one reading.

 

[Zet]

Has anyone tried the Rosetta Stone?

I have and they actually expect you to have some background knowledge first and I found it hard to keep up, but I heard about Rocket Japanese and found it to be a lot better... well that is to stay they give our some free small lessons via email and they actually teach you some sentences and how to say it correctly. So if anyone is keen on purchasing a program to teach them I'd actually recommend finding a class before buying a program.

 

[Furanty]

I learnt Spanish with help Rosetta Stone, however, learning Japanese is totally different. You have much more complex and mainly completly different structures than in European Languages. Most European Languages are SVOs, while Japanese is SOV. Japanese has a complex honorative system, different usage of tenses, different words for male and female, young and old speaker. Rosetta Stone can't teach you the complex grammar of the Japanese language.
It can help you, but without any other courses, you will hardly learn the Language.