Take lessons.

take lessons

It's a good supplement but really it's not like it will get you to fluency. Also from what i heard it teaches some stroke orders for kanji wrong.

Copied from /lang/

"How to start learning Japanese:
Method 1:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about
Just do it. It's a bit hardcore but it will get you to fluency no doubt about it. But going against what he says learn the Kana first it helps alot. Kana= Hiragana/Katakana. You can take Hiragana/Katakana courses here: http://www.iknow.co.jp/courses

Method 2:
Grab a torrent of a Japanese textbook or actually buy the book. Work through the book. Now your done with the book congrats your at the level of a first year Japanese student. Now start reading Native materials and trying to figure out what you don't understand. Learn what you don't know. Now grab another book this time intermediate (might actually have to buy this) work through this and you should be pretty knowledgeable in Japanese. From then on its all just reading/writing/speaking practice get as much as you can. Also with this method use http://www.ichi2.net/anki/ a spaced retention flashcard program. Input vocabulary, grammar examples etc etc. What ever you want to learn. Go here to pick up some vocab or learn the hiragana/katakana: http://www.iknow.co.jp/courses
Its 100% free.
(I recommend Genki, and there are torrents for it. The intermediate level your going to actually have to buy)

Method 3:
Take classes, supplemented with lots of reading/speaking practice. Just because you took classes doesn't mean your gonna be fluent if you don't practice at all.

Also even if you decide not to go with the All Japanese All The Time method you should read his blog. He has a lot of inspirational types of messages and stuff that should help. Also you can take some parts of his method and combine it with another."

Also browse through: http://dis.4chan.org/list/lang

and go look for "Japanese" threads

DO NOT take lessons unless you want to bore yourself to death. Watch an anime, read a manga, just do stuff in Japanese and you'll pick it up.

>Watch an anime, read a manga, just do stuff in Japanese and you'll pick it up.
silly baka
its impossible to learn japanese by just watching anime

If you do decide to get into Kanji, this dictionary can help.

http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary/dp/4770023359

One of the rare moments where I listened to someone on /jp/ to buy something and not regretted it.

>>1857619
How did you learn your native language? By going to classes? By hearing language a lot you naturally pick out patterns.

>>1857611
thanks

so is that rossetta stone any good?

>>1857622

But you grow up with english constantly for year and years, using this method would suggest having someone surrounded with a foreign language for years until they just "picked it up" that could take a long time.

Oh and OP, if you can try to get one-on-one lessons, that's what I'm doing right now and I find it going pretty well, I've memorized hiragana and most of katakana, (Unlike some people I find Katakana harder, the shapes are too simple. Example: シツンソ) Anyway, as far as I can tell once you pick up the grammar it's basically substituting in the words. Just expand your Kanji vocabulary, expand expand expand.

>>1857642
nah its pretty much crap for Japanese

>>1857642
I torrented it and its basically a memory game. I didnt go that far, but i only learned some basic vocabulary

>>1857642
Apparently Tell Me More is better.

Dunno for sure though.

>>1857653
>>シツンソ

OH GOD NOT THEM AGAIN. Why the hell is there something like a TINY difference between them anyways?

Also, to the OP, I tried that game. It uses the same templates as the French and Spanish ones where it uses simple mini games and constant repetition to get the words into your head. Unfortunately at the beginning, it gives you a tiny test to see what grade you are. I remembered answering what manga, tsunami and sushi was and it placed me at level 5. If you have a DS Flashcart, it's probably going to end up sitting in there wasting space.

>>1857653
>シツソン
Learn the correct stroke order and direction and you will never confuse them with each other again.

>>1857653
Lessons and "studying" takes even longer because it's boring and no one wants to do it a lot. Reading some manga is fun and takes little effort once you get used to it.

You can't just start reading manga, you need some basic knowledge of the language for it.

It's the basics that's hard to learn as you can't really do anything interesting until you studied the language for a year or so.

>>1857611
>it teaches some stroke orders for kanji wrong.

no one in Japan actually pays attention to that shit unless they're into hardcore calligraphe.

>>1857724
eh but aren't there kanji dictionaries that are based off stroke order?

>>1857722
lolno

I learned the kana and kanji from 2008 Feb-March or so (Heisig)
Read Tae Kim's Guide To Japanese Grammar and All About Particles (good book for just after finishing Tae Kim and can't read manga get) in about a month. (so april?) in between all this watching lots of unsubbed anime
Then from april to now, I read a lot of manga, and a lot of VNs. So you were off by a good few months there. Now off I go back to reading untranslated F/SN

>>1857741
If you learned the kanjis in 2 months even with Heisig you don't have a life.

>>1857757

>>1857757
Well, I didn't do it "properly". As in, I only learned to recognise them but I didn't learn to write them, so my writing is weak but most writing is done on computers nowadays anyway so I'll pick up writing later if I ever need to

>>1857597
Why would you want to learn kanji? Compounds FTW

>>1857741
What is Heisig anyway? I've taken a Japanese class as an elective but we haven't done kanji yet - is Heisig just an easier method of remembering the characters or does it actually teach you some? I'm only taking a single class this semester so i'll have a lot of spare time for this stuff.

>>1857886
Torrent "Remembering The Kanji", it teaches the kanji + meaning. Then you learn the readings by reading manga with furigana and such.

First off, you have to take classes/lessons, whether they be actual classes or just stuff you find on the internet. I recommend actual classes, though: having a fluent/native speaker helps tremendously, because you have someone to correct you when you're wrong. "My Japanese Coach" works best as a supplement to these lessons, and really shouldn't be used otherwise (which is why it's "My Japanese Coach," as opposed to "My Japanese Teacher" or something of the sort).

Once you've got a bit of study under your belt (with classes, this should be around the time you master all Hiragana and Katakana, and have a good idea of how sentence structure and particles work, plus any vocabulary you've learned up until then), start getting untranslated manga. Now, not all manga works for this: you're going to want manga with Furigana (Hiragana/Katakana next to the Kanji to tell you how it's pronounced), so manga aimed at a younger audience works best. Note that, though not aimed at a young audience, "Crayon Shin-chan" works extremely well for this step: in addition to having Furigana, it'll also help you learn various colloquialisms in the language as well.

You should also, from the beginning of your study, watch subbed anime like crazy, but pay attention to the characters' speech. Though you won't understand it at first (hence, the subs), it'll help you get a grasp on how fluent Japanese sounds, and generally help supplement your learning. Also, get your hands on a good Japanese-English dictionary and a good Kanji dictionary (for the latter, I recommend "Kanji & Kana" from the Tuttle Language Library, which was standard issue to all Japanese students at my high school).

>>1857922

Once you've learned enough to pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 4 (the lowest level), you can then study in a more freeform style: you can continue taking classes if you like, but it's not entirely necessary at this point (recommended, though); if you're taking self-directed lessons, continue until you run out of lessons to take.