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Ok Ryu there's something I think you need to understand, learning any language is hard, tedious and usually a very long process.

Also you're going about the study itself in a very, well silly way. books teach you very systematically most of the time you'll find yourself remembering information as a list not a language which is great for tests but is very problematic for real life because you don't have five minutes to figure what someone said and an swear back to them.
So as someone who speaks three languages (not much but it's better than nothing) I'll give you a piece of advice:
1) books are good if you want vocabulary so get some, but if you want to learn the language go find a newspaper or a magazine of that language and try reading it.
2) be patient, like I've said every language takes time to learn so be prepared for an undertaking a very long time.
3) it would be better if you found someone who speaks the language to talk to after you have the basics down and try listening to the language on tv and stuff like that, it would help you understand more of the basic structure like the position of the verb, subject and object plus sometimes you hear a word you know and it makes you feel good.

Now I'm not sure about this but I think Chinese is one of the more difficult languages to learn because of the great difference between it and modern western languages the same goes for Japanese and Arabic by the way. this is due to many reasoners from the different sounds to form of writing and the way a sentence is set.
In english a sentence is usually set like this---> subject followed by verb and object in that order, in arabic the sentence can be set with the verb being before or after the subject and the same rudimentary verb would be different in every case.
you probably already know how a Chinese sentence is set so you can compare and I'm pretty sure Wikipidia could show you how a Japanese sentence is set but I'm guessing it would be pretty close to a Chinese one (those two cultures have effected each other for a very long time).

if you're really serious about learning japanese I suggest that you either find a teacher who knows what their doing (preferably a native speaker) or go directly to the embassy and see if their teaching because that would definitely be a bit safer and probably easier than finding the former.

Well I guess that the type of Japanese that you should learn depends on what type of use do you have in stored.
If you want to learn Japanese so you'd be able to talk with a human (you can talk to fish but they tend to ignore you) go for the conversational type but if you want to just know japanese for fun then go study Kanji and calligraphy from what I've seen it's a down right art form (I've even tried some myself and I can tell you it takes some practice).
Looking for someone to talk to using a foreign language can be somewhat difficult but here are a couple of ideas:

1) You're living in the USA practically the greatest melting pot in the world so you should check the community center near you for something, maybe you'd get lucky.

2) You should try finding a pen-pal (preferably someone of your age group) who would be willing to have an online conversation with you using MSN, ICQ or any other software that allows voice chat.

3)Just watching TV at that languages can help you to some extent, I think I'm repeating myself so I'll stop now.

PS don't make too much of an effort trying to learn anything quickly if you start to think that you're tired then take a break for a while or just out right stop if it's been a long period of time like an hour or so, these things take time and there's no point in rushing them because it's only going to make you hate it.

On a personal note, dude (assuming you're a guy) from what I can tell, english is your starting point so it puts you in a slight disadvantage compared to other language because english is somewhat of an easy language because it referese to both sexes and objects in the same way, it has very few sounds that are hard to distinguish and it's a very common language so it's easy to pick up (I heard about a guy whom got hit on the head passed out and started talking fluently in english with his doctors while they were talking to him in his native languge, funny as hell but not highly recommended kids).
I for instance have hebrew as a base, and modern hebrew is pretty much a great big jumble of Ancient hebrew, arabic, english, Yiddish and the list just keeps going. Anyways because hebrew is a semitic languge I have somewhat of an advantage in learning other semitic languges because those sounds which are missing in english are there in hebrew and arabic so it helps a bit and some of the words in arabic and hebrew sound the same and many of the patterns used are almost identical, but if lets say I wanted to study Japanese (wait.... I do!) than we'd have just about the same starting point.

Also don't worry about sounding like an Idiot I do it all the time, just ask anyone here.

From top to bottom.

You're welcome, I'm glad I could help you in your inquiry.

I think that the fact that Japanese is more similar to western languages has something to do with WWII and the American conquest and occupation of the country and the fact that japan has had many more contacts with America and the west so it was bound to cause some form of fusion that would seep over the years, you need to remember that a language is a constantly altering thing and with the global village phenomena this sort of thing is to be expected. another thing to remember is that china has made an effort to keep chinese the way it has been which is why it's a rather constant language.

It's a valid possibility that because chinese and Japanese have a great deal in common in their characters that they might have common meanings and from what I've been able to find over the passed hour it seems that many characters do share a very basic, raw meaning but that there are a few exception to this law.

then I say go and study Japanese but you might want to wait a bit before trying to watch movies without subtitles altogether learn how to talk the language and after you have a basic vocabulary of about two hundred common well used words you can try and do that because otherwise you'll just find yourself disappointed of the fact you understand anything.

thank you for your compliment but I object to and reject that claim! I'm very bad at languages I only have 80 at hebrew (mother tongue) and arabic, english is the funny one because I have a 98 at that one and that's practically all the languges I know how to talk read and write. I know how to swear a bit in russian japanese but that doesn't really count. Maybe I somehow gave the false impression that I know chinese and japanese but I don't and three languages are hardly anything a couple of guys here know four and five so I'm hardly skilled.
Also you shouldn't sell yourself so short, you hardly know me and it could be that the age gap between us is a major factor (I turn 19 in three days by the way) and at best I might be more educated than you.