Written Japanese is a stepping stone for written Chinese when shit gets real.
With so many different pieces of advice and tips, it’s harder for me to decide where to start here.
How much do you already know? If you’re completely new to the language, I’d say what you need to do is pretty straightforward: learn to read, write and pronounce the Hiragana syllabry. Then, Katakana.
If you’re a little more advanced than that, just pick one person’s suggestions and get moving. Doing something that isn’t optimal or perfect is still way better than doing nothing while waiting for someone to tell you what you should do.
EDIT: Another thing that is really important: Know why you want to learn the language in the first place. If you want to watch anime without subtitles, then follow EmptyShiki’s advice above about easy anime and manga. If you want to be able to speak fluently enough to live in Japan for a while, consider finding some local Japanese people to speak with and maybe look at taking a holiday there eventually.
This may help you decide
I started out speaking and listening to Mandarin first(taking formal classes at my university). I don’t regret doing that, and had a really good teacher. Only crotch was that we started out reading and writing pinyin(phonetically romanized version of the language) first, which she changed in later years as she saw how some of us became overly dependent on pinyin when that’s not how Mandarin is written. After classes I went to the AJATT method for further improvement. While it’s made my ability to recognize/understand characters greatly improve, my speaking/hearing regressed due to the method de-emphasizing learning readings & talking till you got the characters down. Now that I reached the sortof milestone for the immersion environment my speaking/listening has stopped regressing and is improving again now too. One thing I disagree with Khatzumoto on is how he is strict on NOT learning grammar formally, just learning it in context. I think this is a huge problem with Mandarin as Mandarin is a tonal language. You can’t depend on voice inflection to convey mood, as that may change the entire meaning of the sentence, so there’s a ton of particles in Mandarin that are used to convey subtle moods. I’d recommend studying and knowing those regardless of what Khatzumoto says.
edit: If it helps, I also spent a semester in China and was able to get by fine without knowing the Hanzi in depth(trust me if you’re in immersion that deep and you have a working grasp of the language you will improve even if it’s just enough to get by in daily life, I learned a lot of words and grammar on the fly just by being exposed to new situations)
Even though I am quoting this for truth. No one wants to cut down a tree with a sledghammer. I think myself and a few others are looking for structure.
Agreed, but learning a language is one of those things that there is no ‘right’ way to do, so any concrete suggestion would be just as wrong as the next one. If you really want structure, then all I can suggest is to buy one of the better learning books (Genki and Minna no Nihongo are both pretty good) or better yet, sign up for a class.
If anyone gets up to a certain stage in their learning and wants to know what to do next, I’m sure that the people in this thread would be willing to offer suggestions (and some already have in previous posts). If you’re completely new to the language, though, I’d say forget about the (comparatively) advanced stuff and just get learning your Hiragana and Katakana because every course is going to begin with that anyway. Offering a particular sequence to learn things in might offer a clear pathway, but there are so many ways of approaching the task that the learner risks just getting confused (or just worried that they’re ‘not learning right’) and deciding to forget about it altogether.
not one anime joke?
SMH >:(
What would be your opinions on this series of books?
Would you say that it would be a good starting point as seeing how it’s supposed to prepare you for a japanese proficiency course? Or maybe it’s just a study guide for someone who’s well veresed in the language already.
That book doesn’t prepare you for a proficiency course, rather a proficiency test. The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is basically a certificate you can get that basically says how good you are at Japanese, from level 5 (lowest) to level 1 (almost native-level fluency). It sounds pointless the way I just explained it, but it’s useful if you want to apply for a job in Japan and want to prove you know the language, or if you want to hir a translator and know that they are able to do their job, etc.
The (very short) description on the Amazon page does not mention teaching kana, so that is probably assumes knowledge. Also the JLPT has a listening component, which obviously cannot be taught by a book. If you already know your kana and only want to enhance your reading ability, then it might be the book for you, but I have never even heard of it (not that that means much) and it doesn’t have any feedback on the Amazon page, so it’s a bit of a gamble.
What kind of book are you looking for, and what is your current level of Japanese understanding?
What do you want to get out of learning the language? Do you want to skip Western releases of Japanese games? Do you want to be social? You want to move to Japan and be a salaryman? There are learning resources that are more appropriate for one objective than for another. Especially when you’re looking at books designed to master the JLPT exams.
I’m looking for a book that will give me some kind of direction. Something that will give me some fundamentals and a tangeable goal so I’ll know when I’m ready to start learning the next thing. As far as my level of understanding goes, I might as well say there is none. It’s to limited IMO to even say that there is something there. I do understand some things, but it’s very situational.
I just want to be able communicate with people effectively.
Then I’d probably start with the Genki books. My university uses Minna no Nihongo instead, but I get the impression that they are more technical and work best if you have a teacher of some sort, whereas a lot of people I have talked to have started their self-study with Genki and found them reasonably effective (with the caveats about only getting out what you put in).
I should probably note, however, that I haven’t actually used either of those books as I learned Japanese for 5 years in high school rather than being self-taught. Reading this thread makes me want to start learning again, though.
As far as Japanese, I really liked these two books:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EpBugaS0L.SL500_AA300.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512ZNMDNSEL.SL500_AA300.jpg
Not really helpful for beginners though, deals more so with employing Japanese in situations one might encounter. While also covering aspects of the language such as politeness levels. Def supplementary instead of main texts though.
That’s a pretty nice site, but does it not teach any of the characters? I want to be able to read and not just speak the language.
Ahh, I didn’t consider that… since I learned French, I knew the characters. 
Come on niggas get with the program… literally(the user flashcards are great, those are what you dl, don’t make your own, takes too long, why do work, when it’s finished)…
Repetition based learning is the only way it’ll stick…
So Hirigana/Katakana, then vocabulary(gotta learn some nouns and verbs my niggas)…
Really handy if you have a laptop… in fact I think there is a portable one(that you can put on your flash drive and take anywhere)… haven’t tried it but I will this new spring semester coming up in a few days…
わたしわ。。。おとのひきです。
Just testing the keyboard. Did I say that right?
If you’re just starting from zero, you should start with a beginner’s foundation, like the Genki books I suppose, then revisit or bump this thread. I used Japanese for Busy People years ago (the green and yellow books). I did learn something, because… I didn’t know anything (except katakana which I figured out for myself). But… man, nobody actually talks the way it’s taught in those introductory books. Again this was JFBP, so maybe other sources are better (though I did flip through the first Genki book and it’s a lot of my same complaints).
Other people can disagree here and there about AJATT’s methods, but Khatzumoto cuts through the crap, if your goal is to sound and function like an adult (or hell even a teenager) in another language. Either way good luck.
Since Livemocha was mentioned, I’ll just add in iknow.jp for online SRS (or if you wanna go free and take the time to make your own, Anki as was already mentioned), and once you feel comfortable with the basics… find some Japanese teacher to meet up with for conversation lessons or at least on Skype.
Man I’ve been searching for the Japanese thread cuz I need some one to quickly review my butchery of the language but seems like this is for people wanting to learn it.
My japanese is limited but what are you trying to say at the end? otonohiki? I’m not familiar with that word =/. Also, you use the hirigana “は” instead of “わ” when writing the particle. わたしはyaddayaddayaddaです。