I want to learn Japanese. Where do I start?
 

Hello, I'm new so excuse the newbiness. I have a few questions before I begin learning the Japanese language. Should I learn the Katakana, Hiragana and a few Kanji before I even start to set up phrases? Should I learn the rules of grammar first? Or should I learn both at the same time? How long should I expect to work at the language before I can even begin to form phrases?

A little something about me. I live in the US. I'm a college student working for my degree in Biophysics. My hobbies are learning languages, video games, cars and reading among other things. I know 3 languages; Spanish, English and French. I can understand a couple more like Portuguese and Italian. Japanese will be my first "eastern" language.

Thanks
~Wynn

Oops. I hit the reply button! Grrr. Sorry

One more question now that I double posted. What books do you recommend I buy to maximize learning? Software? Etc... Thanks

Beginner:
Yookoso! for structured grammar and vocab
Kanji in Context
Kanji ABC
download Anki (or Memosyne, but I like Anki better) and make flashcards of all words and kanji you learn (have a kanji/kana deck and a vocab deck) and review daily, maybe introducing 10 new cards of vocab daily and 5 new kanji cards daily

Intermediate:
Japanese Learner's Dictionary
Japanese Verbs at a Glance
How to Tell the Difference Between Japanese Particles
A Dictionary of Japanese Particles
bump Anki up to 30 new kanji a week (so do about 8 a day and have three days-ish of pure review each week with no new cards) and 100 new vocab a week—pull the words/kanji from lists for JLPT 3 and 2 (well, technically it's JLPT 2, 3, and 4, since in 2010 there are 5 levels)

Advanced:
Anki the same way as Intermediate
どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型５００
start reading news articles via news.google.jp, and have an Anki flashcard deck for new vocab from these articles

You should also throughout be looking at the grammar points tested on the various JLPT tests.

This will get you writing and reading. To get speaking and listening, you really only have one true option: hang out with people who can speak Japanese. Watching TV will not really help you all that much. It will help you some with listening some, though.

would you happen to know which specific series (I guess it is) of Yookoso that a beginner should get? I'm kind of confused, because there's a lot of them. xD
much help would be appreciated:rheart:

The Youkoso book we use in our classroom is the Third Edition, 'Introduction to Contemporary Japanese' or something along those lines. If I could suggest something, also take a look at 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar'. I wouldn't try to teach yourself every concept in this book by using this book (other learning materials give more examples and practice) but it's got a lot of good examples/explanations for a lot of basic concepts.

First, Yookoso! vol. 1. Then when you're done (maybe 6mos to a year later), move on to vol. 2. It doesn't matter what edition: they're all basically the same.

There are only two volumes.

I would also recommend Genki I an integrated course in elementary Japanese and the course book that accompanies it.

Also here is a site to help you with learning Kana it works wonders if you use everyday for 2 hours or so then practice writing them. You can learn Kana is as little as a month if you do it daily.

Hiragana and Katakana Practice — Real Kana

Pick one of Genki, Yookoso!, or Minna no Nihongo. I can vouch for Yookoso! I want to say I've heard bad things about Minna, though.

Thanks for such quick and thorough responses. :)

I would learn them in an equal balance for a while. There will come a point where I suggest you just learn lots of new vocab (and when you learn a new word learn its Kanji too) , and focus on listening comprehension. Do not get to bogged down on grammar because a lot of the stuff you find frustrating to understand you will probably eventually just pick up as you get more and more exposure to the language. That is how it worked out for me anyway. Oh and most of all stop assigning the Japanese an English equivalent as soon as you can, and learn to start understanding and taking in the language from a Japanese perspective.