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Originally Posted by Xanvius
What do you recommend then for learning Japanese? Online classes? If so do you know of any that you would recommend to me?
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The Tae Kim Online Grammer (if no one's mentioned it yet) is very good, and teaches quite natural sounding Japanese. You could also pick up the genki textbook. I think amongst the big three it's probably the best for working through by yourself. It provides lots of exercises at any rate. I've used the "Basic Kanji Book" series, and you can learn Kanji from them by yourself without too much difficulty. Japanese for busy people is OK, but be aware it's orientated at older, working people who might need Japanese for a business trip or such, so younger people might find it a bit off-kilter for their needs. It also includes romaji, so be careful you don't constantly read that and not the proper japanese! White Rabbit Press sell kanji flash-card sets for different ability levels, they're very good, or you can also go to
kantango, create a free account and make your own sets. It's the same as anki, but if you then go to 'providers' and search for 'brookes', they have comprehensive vocab sets and listings based on the minna no nihongo series, which are quite useful.
The university of Hawaii has some useful web-resources for learning hiragana, including flash images of the stroke order.
As for listening and speaking, do as others have said and try and find a drama or something to watch and (i find this really helps) shadow the actors. Pause it and repeat what you just heard, especially if it's something you can imagine yourself using. For which purpose, try and find a show that is at least partly grounded in real life. Magical girl anime might be terribly exciting, but let's face it, you will never need to squeal "Hitomi's miracle sword transformation powered up!".Read your books/materials aloud; read what you write down aloud. If nothing else it will help build your confidence and your speed.
I definitely second trying to find a course at your local college. You never know your luck; i live quite stuck out and yet our college does basic japanese. You could also put up flyers asking for tuition, or simply to try and find speakers in your local area. You might even find other people who want to learn Japanese to work with or make a study group with. If you're in high school and you can genuinely say you want to take this onto college/university, you could also try asking through your teachers; my headmistress was particularly awesome and made arrangements for me to attend the beginners classes at the local college for free and asked around other schools for a GCSE instructor for me.