learning Japanese from the very beginning in 5 sure steps

These are the steps I took and those I advised my brother to take. I found it to be good way to start. If you ever wanted to learn but aren't sure where to start, no time for class, no money, etc, maybe you’ll want to try these steps.

1. Make sure you do want to learn.



2. Memorize Hiragana. (Katakana optional and not as essential. I still haven’t fully remembered them)



3. Read ‘The Dirty Guide to Japanese’. To understand the overall system of the language you don’t need to memorize everything. It is just so you get the idea what is what, and what to expect.



4. Read ‘Japanese Particles’ on wiki. Again, no need to memorize them. It's just to give you overall idea what to expect.



5. Dive head first into Kanji. smart.fm and Read the Kanji are great tools that I use along with other reading/listening materials. Oh, and don't forget Heisig, good help!

That's it, you are done!

If you are interested as to why these might be good steps, let me elaborate.


First things first.
I’m learning Japanese. I just started this year, so it’s been about 4 months now. Although I have been exposed to the Japanese Language for longer than English to the extent that I have played and beaten numerous JRPG without really being able to read anything worth a lick. There was a time when my knowledge of Japanese and English were at the same level (read: I didn’t know both). Playing either the Japanese or English version was the same to me. The reason that I’m using English comfortably now while knowing barely a lick of Japanese is that learning English was more acceptable, and it was taught in school, while learning Japanese was slightly frowned upon as being, well, something akin to weeaboo. Since I was a sensitive kid *cough* I could never go through with learning Japanese.

Throughout the years I had many false starts learning Japanese. I found text books to be BORING, and I didn’t want to how to greet people and ask how they are. I just wanted to be able to read and eventually write in the language. I found that in order to speak it well, and not just parroting, you have to get used to how a native speaker phrases their language. And the only way to be able to do that is to read and listen, a lot. But most text books don’t really teach you anything more than being a parrot and a quiz taker. Unless your goal is to ask for the toilet and food and impressing unsuspected people or school grades, a textbook is probably not a way to go.

Then I accidentally stumbled upon All Japanese all the time. Khatzumoto, the author, advocated a learning method which is like throwing a lion cub off the cliff to make them stronger. It might sound crazy and unscientific, but you know what, it clicks with me, because this is like how I learned English. Basically, you just immerse yourself in the language you want to learn, read a lot, listen a lot, even when you can barely understand anything, and just keep doing it. Language learning is an act of accumulating; you can’t just learn a few set of rules, a few vocabulary, and think you can speak that language. It doesn’t work like that.

4 months later, I can safely say his method is probably working. At least it kept me going for this long.

The idea behind my 5 steps is the simple fact that everything from step 1 through 4 is just so you’ll be able to do step 5 with (relative) ease. Since step 5 is actually the only step you have to do. Input input input.

I don’t believe in grammar. To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t really know much about English grammar except in its simplest form, but being able to recognize each compound in a sentence does help with pattern recognition, memorization and, subsequently, learning the usage of language itself. Hence steps 3 and 4.

And writing is the best way to practice expressing yourself in new language without the stress of trying to manage a conversation with native speakers while your skill level is less than that of a baby.