[Nagoyankee]

I disagree completely.

If you start practicing speaking right away, you will have no choice but to rely on romaji, on which you will get easily hooked because you're already familiar with he Alphabet. "Getting yourself hooked on romaji" will seriously slow down your Japanese learning process in the long run.

Besides that, where will you use your speaking skills if you live so far from Japan? Speaking is important but it can wait until you have mastered the basic grammar and vocabulary.

Learn how to read and write Hiragana first. Only when you are 100% comfortable with Hiragana, move on to Katakana. It won't take more than a few weeks to get these two systems down.

Then move onto grammar and vocab using short sentences, starting with basic greetings. Start learning kanji, but never learn them in a random order. Always learn them in context. I see some people here on JF wanting to learn kanji before they can use the two kana systems freely, but that is just non-sense. Learn to write sentences using the two kana systems first and then start replacing easier words with kanji. That is exactly how Japanese kids learn to write.

Never let romaji users advise you on how to study Japanese, period. In the eyes of us Japanese, they haven't even started studying our language.