i was wondering if any one knows of some software or a audio file i can download for free that will teach me to speak japanese thanks

You can subscribe to the Japanese101 podcast. It's pretty good. Nothing helps more than conversational practice though. So if you're just gonna use the podcast, you gotta listen to every single day, like a good hour or 2 every day without ever taking a day off. If you and a friend do it together you can practice and that helps.

There are good web sites to teach you the "alphabets" and kanji too, but for those you gotta use flash cards, and you have to write them a million times a day, and then practice reading every day.

IT'S HELL.

Japanese is a very complicated language to learn because most of the time, the way you're gonna speak depends of the person you are speaking to, add to that the nuances of gender (you don't use the same expressions/words if your are a male or a female), plus the fact to be able to read japanese can help understand the vocabulary, etc. that's why a free software or audiofile will never be enough to actually learn this language.

I would rather recommend to take classes, or if you can't afford them to buy a method like "Japanese with ease" or "Japanese for busy people".

I don't how good you're at self-studying, but I would've never gotten anywhere with Japanese without taking a few courses at my university first. Taking any kind of course will force you to get involved and talk with people, and even if the course is crap, you'll be learning *something*. =P

Here are a few sites that I've found amazingly helpful:

Great site for grammar
Slightly less awesome, but still good site for grammar
Good page for learning kanji

Do what I did to learn Russian.

Go to your library and hire a CD language pack out (cost me £1.20), record it to your PC/mp3 player etc then return the pack.

Go buy a book. Or first, look up the hiragana and katakana symbols and memorize them. THEN buy a book. Whatever you do, memorizing the hiragana/katakana is a must (Sort of the difference between regular type and cursive. You need to use them at different times though) Then once you can form sentences using those, start earning Kanji. Kanji is also very difficult. Welcome to the Japanese language.

you're gonna want to at least get a japanese tutor or something, it's extremely difficult to learn on your own. The best idea would be to take a class, computer programs would be better as a crutch to help you study rather than the only way of studying.

Right now i'm studying my ass off to take the level 1 japanese proficiency test (highest level) this year. By the time I take that test I will have studied for a solid 5 years to get this far.

You have to pay to hire things from the library?

 Most audio/ visual media yes.

Xbox360/PS3/Wii games £2 for 1 week, unlike Blockbusters 100 yards away that charge £4.95 for 2 days!