[persephonequinn]

I'm learning Japanese by self study now, (I went to class for 14 weeks as my University offered but they cancel it after the 14 weeks) So I have to re-learn myself.

To learn a language you need a motivation to do so, (Minus the exam) but for your case, you wanted to go to Japan, so make it as your motivation

From my experience, I do listening before I start with reading, so maybe you can search for audio to get to know the basic of Japanese. Pimsleur is good because it will teach you the pronunciation and it keep repeating itself so that you can remember. And one thing I learned about Pimsleur, it caught you off guard, because when you are at lesson 10 or more, it will suddenly asked you lesson 1 or 2 questions, so it is like a challenge for yourself to remember it. (this help to remember the vocabularies)

At the same time, learn hiragana and katakana, don't learn all in one day, divide it to many session, like learn with hiragana あ　い　う　え　お then next day learn か　き　く　け　こ　with あ　い　う　え　お practice writing it down on the paper many times. then repeat the cycle. as day passes by, increase the amount of hiragana until end of the list.

then start with katakana, always challenge yourself my giving yourself a quiz to write all the kana you had learned.

As for kanji, because I learned mandarin, so it not so difficult for me to remember it [except old and new text], so I do not have any method to help you in that yet, I'm so sorry.