The h is silent and the ni pronounced /nai/ more commonly than it is pronounced /ni/:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nihilist

I used Remembering the Kana 3rd edition to learn hiragana and katakana.

Yes it is possible to learn without, but it is a very easy method and teaches you correct stroke order (which is the hard bit to learn). the keywords also teach you how to correctly pronounce the characters (though i had to modify them, as heisig had assumed all readers would have an american accent!). I definitely recommend it.

You don't need a book/method, but there are arguments for it.

I didn't use a book. I just used mnemonics. The mnemonics will help you cement the character's connection in your brain faster. Then again, if you do anything at all with natural written japanese, it will stick in your mind through shear repetition. It all comes down to how you would like to learn it. Just learn it quickly and move on. Nobody wants to get into the habit of excessive romaji use.

Wow, thanks everyone for all the help, you guys are great. I'm glad I did my research before learning this language. I think all I need to know now, is if there's a deck like the one nest0r is describing?

Here's a video I made based on Lesson 1 from Heisig's book.

The links to the others I made should show up, though only for four of the six lessons. Personally, although you could learn kana the brute force way, I like the way Heisig introduces them. In addition, practicing using words that build up in the order you learn kana works great.

2 things that I already said somewhere else: it doesn't matter if you do the kanas before or after the kanjis. Kanas are easy to learn anyway.

I learned the kanas the hard way when I was 10: I bought a Dragon Ball issue in a garage sale, and tried to understand every kana that was inside without looking at the chart (but if I failed, and you will for the first kana, read the chart and keep reading). That's easy, in 2 hours you'll be able to decrypt most kanas: manga+chart (but look at the chart only if you can't read a kana, don't cheat).

Where could I find some readings, maybe even anime, to practice on after I finish RtKana?

dizdiz Wrote:Where could I find some readings, maybe even anime, to practice on after I finish RtKana?

my favorite recommendation, if available, is to go karaoke! if you already like a japanese song, you should know the lyrics well enough, and furigana is available with karaoke.

i would also recommend watching music programs like music station/happy music/etc. but i don't think they have furigana.

dizdiz Wrote:Where could I find some readings, maybe even anime, to practice on after I finish RtKana?

Go to the Meguro Center Learning website and use their freely availabe study material. *please click me*

dizdiz Wrote:Where could I find some readings, maybe even anime, to practice on after I finish RtKana?

If I recall, there's a kana words deck that has the example words for each kana from RtKana (I'm guessing Nuke put it up), but honestly you don't really have to practice. You encounter them constantly when learning vocab and grammar; they become second nature with zero effort.

Even if you decide to do all of RtKanji before touching vocab and grammar, your SRS reviews for your kana deck will guarantee you maintain your knowledge of pronunciation, stroke order, etc.

kainzero Wrote:my favorite recommendation, if available, is to go karaoke! if you already like a japanese song, you should know the lyrics well enough, and furigana is available with karaoke.

Constantly listening to music and singing along (reading lyrics) is just generally good advice for a lot of reasons. It also makes it really obvious why relying on romaji is a bad idea...