My Hindsight Recommended Course to Learning Japanese:
Foundation (in this order):
Hiragana/Katakana Your basis for all Japanese to come. NO ROMAJI!
Pimsleur Listening Excellent introduction of essential Japanese through drilled listening/speaking (easy to find on torrent, if you're into that)
Heisig 1 It takes a while, but it solves what most consider the largest hurdle to Japanese
Tae Kim's Grammar Japanese explained from the inside
Vocab Building & Application (in any order/combination):
Vocab Drilling (Meguro JLPT Resources)
Heisig 2
A text (JFE, Minna Nihongo)
Reading (manga, children's newspaper, etc)
Writing (journal, Mixi, etc)
Listening (TV, radio, podcasts, etc)
Speaking (partner, exchange)
(I will never compromise on my belief that the very first thing you should do is learn the kana. First, it solidifies your pronunciation since you understand the Japanese phonetic model. Next, it immerses you in Japanese. I believe romaji is a horrible crutch for people who want quick and dirty use of the language, not learning. Yes, it's slow and difficult at first. But saying romaji is easier is like saying riding a bike in a marathon is faster. You got to the finish line quicker, but you haven't run the actual race! Also, learning the kana is a great motivator; it's frickin' cool to learn new squigglies. I still remember clearly the first Japanese I recognized and could read "in the wild").
Depending on your learning style, I would recommend a textbook for 3 months or so before you start Heisig. It will have wet your appetite for more Japanese, and also exposed your need for a better way to learn kanji (you'll realize soon enough how difficult it is to learn kanji any other way). Also, a few months of more Japanese study will make the Japanese you already know immediately applicable with Heisig. All those words you know will be little "aha!"s when you learn the kanji in Heisig.
I would actually go back into textbook/other sources mode after RTK1 for awhile before going into RTK2.
The others have explained enough about "getting trapped" in Heisig. It's just not possible if you have a vision of what it is.
Foundation (in this order):
Hiragana/Katakana Your basis for all Japanese to come. NO ROMAJI!
Pimsleur Listening Excellent introduction of essential Japanese through drilled listening/speaking (easy to find on torrent, if you're into that)
Heisig 1 It takes a while, but it solves what most consider the largest hurdle to Japanese
Tae Kim's Grammar Japanese explained from the inside
Vocab Building & Application (in any order/combination):
Vocab Drilling (Meguro JLPT Resources)
Heisig 2
A text (JFE, Minna Nihongo)
Reading (manga, children's newspaper, etc)
Writing (journal, Mixi, etc)
Listening (TV, radio, podcasts, etc)
Speaking (partner, exchange)
(I will never compromise on my belief that the very first thing you should do is learn the kana. First, it solidifies your pronunciation since you understand the Japanese phonetic model. Next, it immerses you in Japanese. I believe romaji is a horrible crutch for people who want quick and dirty use of the language, not learning. Yes, it's slow and difficult at first. But saying romaji is easier is like saying riding a bike in a marathon is faster. You got to the finish line quicker, but you haven't run the actual race! Also, learning the kana is a great motivator; it's frickin' cool to learn new squigglies. I still remember clearly the first Japanese I recognized and could read "in the wild").
Depending on your learning style, I would recommend a textbook for 3 months or so before you start Heisig. It will have wet your appetite for more Japanese, and also exposed your need for a better way to learn kanji (you'll realize soon enough how difficult it is to learn kanji any other way). Also, a few months of more Japanese study will make the Japanese you already know immediately applicable with Heisig. All those words you know will be little "aha!"s when you learn the kanji in Heisig.
I would actually go back into textbook/other sources mode after RTK1 for awhile before going into RTK2.
The others have explained enough about "getting trapped" in Heisig. It's just not possible if you have a vision of what it is.
Edited: 2008-01-08, 5:54 am