http://www.tofugu.com/guides/type-japanese-windows-7/
=)
ありがとうございます（＾ω＾）☆ミ
nvm i got half of it wrong =’(
(These are just my opinions, based on what really worked for me, not trying to downplay any other method)
1.) Learn hiragana and katakana. imo those are incredibly easy and you should get those out of the way asap.
2.) Start learning grammar. Which means learning vocabulary, but the focus should be grammar. I still have tons of trouble with grammar, but you should at least get started with understanding the foundation of sentence structure and syntax.
3.) Learn kanji. Or more accurately, familiarize yourself with kanji. When I used to look at Japanese writing, it was actually painful to watch because of the density of indecipherable text. Also, even though there’s a lot of multiple-meaning kanji, and compound words based on Japanese phrases that can’t be read literally, there are a lot of kanji with single meanings, and multiple kanji that can be read literally (for instance, the two kanji for “air” and “harbor” is easy to figure out in your head). My point is, for the moment I think it’s more important to just remember as many kanji as you can, instead of how to actually SAY them, so you can start to read comfortably. You can scour the dictionary afterwards for the words themselves. Remember that kanji are ultimately symbols representing an idea. That nuance is easier to understand once you read the kanji, instead of just the romanized or hiragana words.
Also, learn radicals first, kanji are way easier to read and remember if you can break them down to their radical elements.
4.) Learn vocabulary and learn kanji readings. Once you recognize kanji, you can learn to associate the readings in the right context. Sometimes the kanji for sky/empty is read as “sora” by itself, or “kuu” in a compound (like “kuukou” or airport).
There are plenty of Japanese words that don’t use kanji as well, but you learn them as you go along.
5.) After you’re comfortable with grammar, copy native speech (from news, or dramas, or even blog posts or another source) so you can try to actually sound Japanese.
My Japanese landlord’s grasp of English makes me sad. You can tell that she tried to learn “business” vocabulary, but she sounds like Google translate. A lot of sentences that may not be incorrect, but just aren’t natural.
So you should learn to ignore what the instruction books say, and pay more attention to what real people say. Even if it doesn’t make sense to YOU, at first.
Omake.) Finally, how about learning formal speech (keigo)? Or pre-war kanji so you can crack open some historical literature?
Learn Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji while you play an old school JRPG. Battles are fought by entering the character kanji. I feel like it really reinforces your knowledge this way. I’ve always been a better learner by interacting with the material I’m learning in a creative way, so this definitely helps me.
japanese is a bitch to learn
There’s also this page: japaneseclass.jp
Anki(google)…
It’s a free flashcard program based around the that forgetting curve research for maximum retention…
You can download user made flashcards… learn kanas first(hirigana and katakana), then use those vocab(with sound and pics and shit) to learn words, because what good is the alphabet without words 
…
EDIT: I haven’t studied them since 5 months ago and I still remember how to read my kanas(can’t write them anymore though) and remember the very few words I bothered learn and I only studied for a month… it’s very very good…
I don’t have to start from the beginning and I could pick up right where I left off… in fact, I want to do that soon enough…
^ This is what I’m doing but I’m going to skip the words part and just go straight to Kanji. I’ll start learning how to read/speak it after I’ve memorized the Kana and the Kanji.
^ Alot of everyday words use Kanji
The learning words part teaches you the word and the symbol and has a audio clip so you can instantly recognize it when you hear it…
Trust me, learn Kanji last… because that’s the advanced part of the language… Japanese adults even struggle with it to an extent, and they’ve been speaking it their entire lives…
EDIT: There are alot of Kanji’s that are not in everyday usage so learning those first could end up being pointless, like there are tons of words in English that aren’t in common use…
This. One does not simply memorize ‘the kanji’.
“get used to?” =P
I don’t think dragging the kanji is a good idea, just learn the character and the main meaning leave the different pronunciatios for later you will learn them as you read.
The big problem with japanese is that you can’t practice reading if you don’t know the kanji unless you’re reading some shonen manga,you will be limited to that but you wont be able to read seinen manga,novels or magazines. You have to know the kanji. the more kanji you know the more sources you will be able to read and get a hold of the language faster.
And think twice if you think the grammar is going to be easy it’s probably the hardest part of the language.
Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2
This is pretty much what I’m doing.
:eek:?
EDIT: Been studying Mandarin Chinese for about four years now, and decided to take up learning the Traditional Characters as well, what a nightmare it’s been . One thing I will agree with Bulldancer on is that there’s so fucking many archiac/ultra-specific characters that I’ve been shown that I’ve wanted to punch my fist through my computer. It’d be like teaching someone English using words like “wight” and “goodliest”.
Don’t you folks know that Korean is the new Japanese? Get learning if you consider yourself hip.
My post above was intended to highlight the problem with trying to learn ‘the kanji’ as an obstacle to be passed before moving on to aural and verbal understanding, namely that there are so many of them that it is unlikely that you could learn all of them and a large number of them are obsolete or rarely used. As such, you don’t try to learn ‘the kanji’ in the same way you learn ‘the English alphabet’, but rather more like you would learn the lexicon - incrementally, and in conjunction with other aspects of the language.
Even if Verstande had only meant, say, the joyo subset of all kanji I would still say that it would be a mistake to attempt learning it before a general vocabulary rather than at the same time.
Not trying to start an argument, just clarifying my original statement.
I’m more of a knee person.
Yomi: I thought that was Mandarin 
EDIT: Osh I get ya, I’m just being an asshole >:P
Remember it is possible to attain fluency without spending much time in Japan, though it helps.
I actually attained a relatively high level of fluency even before I went to Japan during 4th year of college. After 4.5 years of studying I probably passed JLPT 1 and I can hold pretty solid conversations with native Japanese on a variety of topics, better than most of my peers.
I never spent significant time with flash cards after my first year, I think its more important to read and watch stuff than just use flash cards. Its different if your studying for a test and need to know the vocab or something or just really like flash cards for some reason but I would say reading daily would be much more valuable habit than flash cards, once you are able to.
Some advice
Watch Card Captor Sakura in raw Japanese, Its really easy
Read the Yotsubato Manga in raw Japanese, its also really easy
Try talking to any Japanese you meet, grow a pair.
if your at college look around for Japanese conversation clubs and such.
Incorporate memory training into kanji/vocab learning by trying to remember the previous 3-10 while continuing to look at the rest of your vocab/ Kanji. If you are practicing writing kanji look at each Kanji once, write it down, then after 10 Kanji or so try and write them all down in order. Its challenging but memory is important so work it.
and probably the best advice I have would be to
Play visual novels, with rikaichan assist.
Its probably the most efficient method of reading entertaining Japanese materials quickly without extremely good knowledge of Kanji. With easy school-life games like One or Clanned, 1-2 years of Japanese instruction combined with years of subtitled anime should be enough.
Download or otherwise obtain Visual novels, there are free ones online as-well as commercial ones.
Download the ｆurigana inserter and html ruby furigana thing.
Download the furigana inserter template
Download Rikaichan.
Use Japanese visual novels like Tsukihime, or Clanned or something. Use AGTH to get all of the text that pops up in the game to also come up into the furigana inserter template in firefox. Use RikaiChan for on the fly translation of kanji you don’t know.
It allows for faster more flowing reading because you don’t need to open any dictionaries or look up Kanji by radical or anything, Its better than reading Manga because you get the meaning as well as the reading of things you don’t know, and downloaded manga tend to have hard to read furigana.
You can also just use Rikaichan and look up short stories or something on the internet as well.
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/showthread.php/36807-AGTH-text-extraction-tool-for-games-translation