I want to learn Japanese. Where do I start?
 

Hello, I'm new so excuse the newbiness. I have a few questions before I begin learning the Japanese language. Should I learn the Katakana, Hiragana and a few Kanji before I even start to set up phrases? Should I learn the rules of grammar first? Or should I learn both at the same time? How long should I expect to work at the language before I can even begin to form phrases?

A little something about me. I live in the US. I'm a college student working for my degree in Biophysics. My hobbies are learning languages, video games, cars and reading among other things. I know 3 languages; Spanish, English and French. I can understand a couple more like Portuguese and Italian. Japanese will be my first "eastern" language.

Thanks
~Wynn

Oops. I hit the reply button! Grrr. Sorry

One more question now that I double posted. What books do you recommend I buy to maximize learning? Software? Etc... Thanks

Beginner:
Yookoso! for structured grammar and vocab
Kanji in Context
Kanji ABC
download Anki (or Memosyne, but I like Anki better) and make flashcards of all words and kanji you learn (have a kanji/kana deck and a vocab deck) and review daily, maybe introducing 10 new cards of vocab daily and 5 new kanji cards daily

Intermediate:
Japanese Learner's Dictionary
Japanese Verbs at a Glance
How to Tell the Difference Between Japanese Particles
A Dictionary of Japanese Particles
bump Anki up to 30 new kanji a week (so do about 8 a day and have three days-ish of pure review each week with no new cards) and 100 new vocab a week—pull the words/kanji from lists for JLPT 3 and 2 (well, technically it's JLPT 2, 3, and 4, since in 2010 there are 5 levels)

Advanced:
Anki the same way as Intermediate
どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型５００
start reading news articles via news.google.jp, and have an Anki flashcard deck for new vocab from these articles

You should also throughout be looking at the grammar points tested on the various JLPT tests.

This will get you writing and reading. To get speaking and listening, you really only have one true option: hang out with people who can speak Japanese. Watching TV will not really help you all that much. It will help you some with listening some, though.

would you happen to know which specific series (I guess it is) of Yookoso that a beginner should get? I'm kind of confused, because there's a lot of them. xD
much help would be appreciated:rheart:

The Youkoso book we use in our classroom is the Third Edition, 'Introduction to Contemporary Japanese' or something along those lines. If I could suggest something, also take a look at 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar'. I wouldn't try to teach yourself every concept in this book by using this book (other learning materials give more examples and practice) but it's got a lot of good examples/explanations for a lot of basic concepts.

First, Yookoso! vol. 1. Then when you're done (maybe 6mos to a year later), move on to vol. 2. It doesn't matter what edition: they're all basically the same.

There are only two volumes.

I would also recommend Genki I an integrated course in elementary Japanese and the course book that accompanies it.

Also here is a site to help you with learning Kana it works wonders if you use everyday for 2 hours or so then practice writing them. You can learn Kana is as little as a month if you do it daily.

Hiragana and Katakana Practice — Real Kana

Pick one of Genki, Yookoso!, or Minna no Nihongo. I can vouch for Yookoso! I want to say I've heard bad things about Minna, though.

Thanks for such quick and thorough responses. :)

I would learn them in an equal balance for a while. There will come a point where I suggest you just learn lots of new vocab (and when you learn a new word learn its Kanji too) , and focus on listening comprehension. Do not get to bogged down on grammar because a lot of the stuff you find frustrating to understand you will probably eventually just pick up as you get more and more exposure to the language. That is how it worked out for me anyway. Oh and most of all stop assigning the Japanese an English equivalent as soon as you can, and learn to start understanding and taking in the language from a Japanese perspective.

This is extremely important. While I think OP may already know this (he speaks three already), he might not (let's face it, the three languages he speaks are like gorillas, chimps, and humans, while Japanese is a slime mold).

long long ago when i took a japanese language course, we used japanese for busy people kana edition (u learn hiragana and katakna in that)
to begin i think its good to kno whow to write hiragana first then later moved onto katakna, katakna are used for the writing of foreign words, such as the word sofa would be written using katakana

First thing is first, learn Hiragana and Katakana. Do not go any further without being able to do this! And in my experience, learn kanji from the go. Look on amazon for 'Basic Kanji Book Vol1', its a pretty awesome book.
There are 2000ish kanji that are considered the standard 'Joyou' kanji. I don't mean learn them all straight away, I mean it takes Japanese school kids their whole school lives to dig them in, but learn kanji at a pace alongside your grammar, vocab and other reading materials.
Personally, I started learning Japanese at home in October and I've got about 50 kanji dug into my head, with passive knowledge of a few others. It's not as difficult as they appear, it's just that there is so many!

I'd also look at aquiring 'Pimsluer's Japanese' audio training. And try Live Mocha, which is a free online equivalent, if not better version, of Rosetta Stone

The only two books you need for kanji are Kanji ABC and Kanji in Context. Hell, you probably only need Kanji in Context, but Kanji ABC gives you a different take on kanji.

I seriously mean that those are the only books you need. Make flash cards from them, write kanji a lot, and you'll learn 2000 in 3-4 years at a rate of 10 kanji/week which is VERY doable. I do 30/week currently and I have retained 95% of them for 6 mos.

I love this book.

It does take a bit of getting used to (If you aren't used to reading only in Japanese) but when I started to use it i felt its benefits to my kanji reading, vocabulary and understanding of sentences after only a couple of chapters.

I stopped using it recently due to pure lazyness but I guess I should get back into it and finish it.

Anyway, awesome book :)

It depends on what you want to learn first. For me, I started learning words and phrases first because memorizing the katakana, hiragana, and kanji are useless if you can't speak the language and you don't even know the meaning. After learning some useful words, I started learning how to read and write. Written Japanese is very difficult to write and understand because of the complexity of kanji especially. Although I am fluent in conversational Japanese, I still can't write the three perfectly. Goodluck!:vsign:

A beginner should, hands down, just buy Yookoso! (or one of the other Big Two series) and just work through the first half of volume 1. After that, he should start following the guide I posted earlier.

That's my opinion on an efficient and strategic way of gaining skills in a short few years.

Hi Wynn! Nice to meet you! :)

I've been studying Japanese for a year and a half via university. We were taught with Minna no Nihongo (みんなの日本語）, which goes through elementary level Japanese and gets you prepared for more intermediate things. We're now going through Shin Nihongo no Chuukyuu (新日本語の中級) which is early intermediate Japanese at the beginning and starts introducing more difficult grammar at the end.

In answer to your questions:

Yes. Learn how to write Japanese first. Let it be the first thing you ever do! Hiragana and katakana aren't hard to learn. Once comfortable enough with these, move on to simple kanji. I recommend learning the main 500 kanji first; with enough kanji, you'll then be able to spot patterns with radicals and the next 500 will be easier. (Of course, I'm not at this level yet! I wish I was!)

Set yourself a realistic goal to learn these in. Focus more on reading than writing. This said, my writing is rather sloppy so recently I've just been concentrating on that! :mtongue:

Listening and speaking shouldn't be forgotten, of course. Try Keyhole TV once you're familiar with Japanese, but before this, try beginner's podcasts. There are loads around. I recommend one called JapanesePod101. I enjoy their audio blogs!