When living in the US with the hectic work life, I felt I need some exercise for my brains too. I figured learning a new language would be interesting and useful at the same time. Because all the languages I have studied so far (English, Swedish, German) were European and more or less related to each other, I wanted to try something completely different. So I looked west (from California) and decided to learn an Asian language. Chinese would have been most practical from the training point of view, because many of my coworkers were Chinese. But Chinese felt too difficult because of the intonations and having to learn tons of characters from the beginning. Japanese provided a slightly easier learning curve, and I was already interested in the Japanese culture, so the choice was clear.
I began by browsing the net and reading some introductory tutorials. Pretty soon I bought a Finnish Japanese text book and a dictionary which have been very useful. For learning some common phrases and improving listening comprehension, Pimsleur's language courses have been a very good help. They are expensive, but you can always sell them later. Of course taking a class with an actual teacher would have been best, but because of time constraints that was not an option for me. So I have only done self-study, and even that not regularly.
Now I'm in a point where I can speak Japanese somewhat, but my listening comprehension is not very good. Also reading is difficult, because I have already forgot many of the hiragana characters, and I haven't yet learned all katakana characters, not to mention kanji. Pronunciation of Japanese is quite similar to Finnish, and I've been told that my pronunciation is very good. So I think I have a good start, and yet again just need practice, practice and more practice. More dorama, more anime, maybe a class if they have them here, and I definitely want to go and visit Japan some day.