Watching anime is a very popular pass time but it is not the way forward to mastering Japanese. I don't know how many times I see people say this and yet people still insist on doing it! Yesterday I was talking to my friend on skype, he explained to me how he had starting learning Japanese too. Of course, I got excited, finally I'd have a friend that I knew in real life to practise Japanese with (all the others take on the ignorant attitude of "I'm English, other countries will learn my language, why bother becoming bilingual?"). So, I asked that all important question; "So how have you been learning it?" to which he replied "I've been watching one piece (a popular anime) with subtitles and copying what they say". I decided to hear what he could say, for a laugh and what came out was awful. He called me an idiot every 5 seconds, referred to himself as sama and sounded like a frog on helium. Obviously this is not the way to go!

Watching anime is fine but for the most part don't copy what they say, a lot of it is unacceptable to come out with, calling yourself sama for example and whatever you do, don't copy how they say things, it's extremely over exaggerated and if you actually talk like that, you will look like a total moron!