I'm learning japanese as well I'm taking a program but it's not an easy language by any means. I thought it would go much faster but I'm getting to conversational level and I can read some Kanji. I found the review for the program on http://bit.ly/1cvbAOg.

Depends on what you mean by "fluent" in. I know many people with a limited vocabulary who can speak Japanese quite fluently. Personally, I am not fluent (yet), however I think what many people forget is that fluency requires a certain confidence in your own ability plus the ability to flow from one idea to another fluidly. In essence, this is how we use our own language. Even now, as I write this, my brain is determining what sentences structures and vocabulary best suit this situation. However, because I am a native English speaker, the gaps in between these ideas are quite small, only taking seconds (or even milliseconds) to correct and check for proper flow. This is what we want to do with Japanese. We want those gaps in between ideas to become smaller and smaller. In my 3 years of study experience, the method that has worked best for me is the "Input Method" as promoted by Stephen Krashens, the creators of Antimoon, and Khatzmoto from All Japanese All the Time. This method helps with listening and reading. In the year I have been following this method, my reading skill has skyrocketed. My listening has also steadily improved. Now, I mentioned spaces between ideas before. This is something I am trying to work out myself. I interviewed three of my friends, all of whom are fluent in Japanese. They all agreed. The best way to shorten the space between ideas is to practice using the language in real conversations. Hope this helps. Someone mentioned AbroadInJapan's youtube channel. He's a great video maker, however I've never heard him speak Japanese. Khatzomoto, however, has a video of himself speaking Japanese quite well. If you look him up on youtube, you'll find it.

Here are some tips from a Japan vlogger on YouTube (he is from England but lives in Japan). He gives excellent advice on becoming fluent. Please watch it, it definitely helped me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOZbJ7PCPk

I find that watching a show in the language helps with listening and comprehension skills ^^ Japanese game shows are fun, and also have subtitles in the language for extra help (sometimes they talk pretty fast).

i would recommend using a website called memrise ww.memrise.com