I am also a novice on the japanese.. and I am studying the language for my qualification exam.. So I don't know what is the best way to learn that language.. but I can give you some information related with computer. Firstly there are several free software for Japanese terminal emulator such as kterm, but it needs another japanese input program such as uum, jelvis, canna, etc.. The above examples are not for PC but for unix or Linux, and you can get very useful information from usenet news group "sci.lang.japan", and the useful ftp site or WWW site is "ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hi/hideki/", "http://psk.anderson.american.edu/hideki/hideki.htm". And I know there are no free-Japanese BBS sites. The most useful way you can use is to read japanese news with a program 'ktin'(news reader for Japanese). I hope it's useful for your japanese studying ! ,SK