I don't have much experience with the home study courses, honestly.
Here's my experience. I've been trying for ages to learn Japanese. I have many books and have read a great deal about the language. I can speak well what I know, but I don't have time to practice it so I'm not really learning much.
If you have to time to immerse yourself in a home study course, you'll learn the language and you'll be able to speak it, but practice with a native/advanced speaker is what allows you to understand the more natural-sounding idiomatic points of the language. There's really no "quick fix" to learning a language.
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