This is a basic guide to help you start learning Japanese in the easiest way possible, with both general tips and the best resources that helped me learn. It's kinda long, but it should be helpful.
First, I have a list of good Japanese learning resources that have helped me a lot, I'll put them here:
Japanese from Zero's companion videos(they go along with the course/books, but can be helpful even without): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOcym2c7xnBwU12Flkm5RcLIEhvURQ8TB&si=tdJQfEF6yEYtZz6l
Nihongoal's Minna no Nihongo videos(a bit dense, but the videos can be watched a bit at a time): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLag_mhJfCJ-1-EZcPapMFPTlzVzwjz33M&si=UxXz1qoFhq_1_FxC
Becauseofdreams learn Japanese videos(short, simple, and to the point, good for quickly understanding the basics of a grammar concept with example sentences to help get a feel for how it's used): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwGjqS2iLnwV1lBfUo6VuWmMaWUJnxLMK&si=F_U2ILDhSa8bSqtl
Japanesepod101 800 Japanese vocabulary words(good both for learning words and practicing translation skills with the practice sentences): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPSfPyOOcp3Qbu6DT536Y1IkcRLSLbHty&si=9Jlil-3R58dcvEz2
Japanese ammo with Misa(teaches concepts slowly and simply, so you won't get overwhelmed, great for beginners): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd5-Wp_4tLqZor0fbsXtP7t6npWeE-2IU&si=7Qmz5WYA-qo7EiF3
Kendra's language school videos(especially the 1000 phrases and listening practice videos): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL41R2vH_CL40PRnrrD1CMTGVXLiSNQbdo&si=odZEHH9F4FXIyR0k
Tofugu's learn hiragana/katakana guide, plus the kana quiz and pretty much the entire rest of the site: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
This made learning hiragana/katakana a lot easier for me, especially the quiz.
Japanese particles master: https://japaneseparticlesmaster.xyz/
Great for explaining specific words, forms, and particles in a simple way to make them easy to understand. Very underrated.
Tuhoconline 1000/2000 most common Japanese words list: https://japanese.tuhoconline.net/most-common-japanese-words.html
Great for reading through every now and then to refresh words in your mind, as well as finding new words to add to flash cards. I haven't checked out much of the rest of the site, but it might be good as well.
I also have a few tips I've come up with as I've been learning, there's a lot, but I'm very passionate about Japanese learning so I always love having an opportunity to share:
Something to keep in mind is that most vocabulary videos will sometimes have slightly incorrect translations, but for the most part they're pretty helpful. Once you've watched them once, listening to them in the background while you do other things is super helpful.
Some people also like Tae Kim's Japanese book, which is free online, but personally I didn't like it much. It might be different for you though.
A lot of people use Anki for flashcards, but it's so confusing there's literally multi-hour long tutorials showing how to use it, so take it with a grain of salt. Personally I use Wordholic flashcards, it has ads but they're very unintrusive and even with them I think it's better than Anki as it's way easier to understand and use right from the get go.
It's normal for people to struggle with katakana, I think it's because it's basically another script for the same sounds as hiragana(plus a few extra).
For kanji, I would recommend just ignoring radicals, unyomi/kunyomi and the meanings of each one, and just learn full words. For example, "今"(ima) means "now", but it's pronounced completely differently in "今日"(kyou), which means "today".
You could learn that the first kanji means now and the second means day, but it's easier to just remember that that combination of characters just means "today", and as you see the same kanji in multiple words, you'll be able to figure out the patterns and intuit the meanings of the character naturally.
Some general kanji rules are that words with only kanji are either nouns or -na adjectives, and words with kanji at the start and hiragana at the end are either verbs or -i adjectives.
A good way to learn words with flashcards is to have the hiragana spelling and the full kanji spelling on one side(romaji as well, if you like) and the english meaning on the other, even if you don't understand the kanji at first you'll see it every time you get that card, and you'll slowly memorize it over time.
I'd also recommend making flash cards in groups of 50 or so, so once you're confident you know all those words you can make another group. That way, you can revisit groups you've learned before to make sure you keep them memorized. You can also make a list of all the words you know.
Practice what you already know until it's relatively comfortable for you before moving on to the next thing, ideally you want to stop learning new things and just keep reviewing what you've already learned once you start to get overwhelmed.
A lot of people will tell you you need to speedrun learning, you shouldn't take more than a week for hiragana and a week for katakana, and you have to add 10 new words a day to your Anki deck, etc. etc. but it's not a race, you should learn at whatever pace works for you so you don't get overwhelmed. I'd recommend just learning a set amount at a time rather than adding new ones every day, as that builds up and gets overwhelming fast.
Take all language advice(including mine) with a grain of salt, just because John Language learned 17 languages in a fortnight using this one weird trick doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be the best for you. Everyone learns differently, and the Japanese learning community especially can be very elitist and judgmental, so give each piece of advice you hear a try and if it works, use it, if it doesn't, don't, you're the one that knows best what will work for you.
If a video or course is teaching a concept that's too difficult for you, it's okay to move on and come back later. Some things will take multiple attempts, especially ones you don't use often. Just having it in your brain, even if you forget most of it, will help as when you see it in the wild you'll remember "Oh hey, I remember that!" and each time you see it it'll solidify itself in your mind a little more.
Learning to think in Japanese is also something you should work towards, just think thoughts normally, then translate them into Japanese, and eventually you'll be able to just start in Japanese without having to translate first. This will give you a ton of practice with basic sentence structure, which will make future learning a lot easier.
When you have a thought that you can't translate, write it down and look up how to say it, then practice that. Eventually, you'll have a list of a bunch of concepts you commonly think about and how to say them.
Learn as many basic words as possible, so if you can't say exactly what you mean, you can approximate it. So things like basic nouns, adjectives, shapes, common objects, sizes, times(now/later etc.), and verbs. And if you just flat out can't say what you want to, you can just MacGyver it and use all the words you do know in an order that kinda makes sense.
So if you want to say "I need to go to the bathroom" but you don't know how, you can just say "Bathroom, go" like a caveman and they should understand the gist of it.
When practicing translating example sentences into Japanese, do it multiple times. The first time you'll probably take forever for each word and put them in the wrong order, then you'll have a good sentence but it takes a few seconds for each word, and if you keep trying you'll be able to say it quickly. That'll make you remember that sentence for a lot longer than just translating it once.
I know that's a lot, but these are all things that helped me, so hopefully they'll be helpful to you too. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask me, I'm not fluent yet but I've been studying for a few years and know most of the basics pretty well, and I'm always happy to talk about Japanese!
Hope this helps, and good luck with your Japanese learning!
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