Hi, I'm new around here and just starting out with my learning of Japanese. So new, in fact, I haven't even started yet, however I have been doing some research for the last couple of weeks. I'm looking for some advice on where to start.

I have in my possession the Sixth edition of Remembering the Kanji and the Third edition of Remembering the Kana. I've read the introduction to both of these books, but I couldn't find anything about which the author suggests to start with first. Most of my research has said that you should learn Hiragana, then Katakana, and finally start learning Kanji. I've also noted a few places that say to learn Kanji (specifically RtK1), then RtKana, before moving on to sentences, readings, and grammar.

I want to use the immersion technique, I'm thinking I can get in 16-18 hours a day of immersion. Of course, that would be all listening to the language at first as I wouldn't be able to read anything. This leads me to believe that I should start with the Kana since that might allow me to read Furigana in children's books or the Hirgana Times blog. So far I've subscribed to several podcasts and downloaded quite a few audiobooks using the links provided in this forum, thanks for that.

Where should I start, Remembering the Kanji or Remembering the Kana?

I personally don't see how it matters, or why you couldn't do both at the same time if you wished.

If you use an SRS, the kana shouldn't take very long, so maybe it's more motivating to be able to read something while you do the kanji. You seem very motivated in the first place though, so maybe you'll finish RTK really quick anyway.

One thing though, most if not all katakana are also radicals (or "primitives") that are part of some kanji. In 尋 for example, you can see the supposed "エロ" (ero) in the middle, and I know some stories on this site used that as an advantage to have the word ero- included (yes, there'll be quite a few perverted stories on here). There aren't many like these, so it won't make a huge difference, but it might be good to know before you start.

You've picked a good method, good luck!

You should start with kana, you know, to get them out of the way.
Have you seen this thread?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

Start with the hirigana it really only takes like 3 hours and youl be able to sound out lots of words. after that start RTK1 I sugguest you only do RTK for maybe 1-2 hours a day
when you get there and spend the rest listening to podcasts/audio books

for podcasts I really really like japanesepod101.com 's linear lessons

go there and try newbie season 2 (absolute begginer and newbie season 1 both start you at the same point but there is nothing that continues after them) after that try newbie season 3 then begginer season 4 (this is the order the site currently sugguests) after listening to those you'll have a few hundred word vocabulary it's fun because each lesson takes you word by word through the dialog until you can understand it after just a few lessons you realize you are really starting to progress.

one thing you can take advantage on there is the line-by-line audio transcript
it has all the words in the dialog in japanese english romaji and hirigana
(japanese transcript and hirigana both have hirigana in them the difference is that the hirigana version doesn't have kanji, it just spells out the kanji in hirigana)
which is great since you can get reading practice right from the getgo!

No idea where you should start, but I can tell you how my Granny began.

Ever since she was so magnanimously informed by Amaterasu that they speak Japanese in Paradise, my Granny has wanted to learn it. Finally, she got down to business. She thought it would be wise to learn her ABC first.
She learnt the two あ　ア　in no time, no big deal, we have two As, too. A and a.
But to her bewilderment, she learnt that she couldn't learn her B. They have no B character in Japanese. Fortunately, she soon discovered that they have a b sound at least. It is somewhat different, but it is there. She immediately started looking for her favourite sounds: v and f. She was amazed once more - no such sounds! What a language! Instead, they have some lower and higher pitches and ん that looks somewhat like n, but is a full mora and could give you a headache first thing in the morning.
She then took a magnifying glass to have a closer look at Chinese characters in disguise, she looked and looked but she couldn't find any on-yomi or kun-yomi in any of them, and she finally decided that she must be getting somewhat hard of hearing.

IMHO, in a few words:

First kana, then kanji. Or if you want, you can start both at the same time, but focus on kana first so you learn them soon.

Usually people learn hirAgana first, and then katakana, but as katakana are much less used than hiragana, there's a tendency to forget them.

I've read that some people learn first katakana and then hiragana. The advantages of that approach are 2:

- As katakana will be your first approach to Japanese characters, you'll remember more easily once you've studied them.

- You can start practising soon by "katakanizing" words from your own language, so you don't need to learn new vocabulary to practice writing. You could do the same with hiragAna, but that would be a rather unnatural use of the characters. An added benefit is that you can improve your understanding of Japanese pronunciation by paying attention to how words change when you "katakanize" them.

Good luck and 頑張って！

P.S. : If you haven't checked it yet, look up "rikaisama" in the forum and start using that plugin dictionary for Firefox, ir will be of great help for your learning.

My Granny has started learning Japanese; that’s why she has drawn a road map for herself. She always likes to know what Paradise she is stepping into. Or, to put it in plain Broken English, she wants to know what there is to learn.
http://www.mediafire.com/?b47qj1l0hbhjj90
A small .doc file.
Just a cheat-sheet, the links there won't be working - the content was not uploaded - too bulky!
Perhaps someone will find it useful.

Thanks for all the help and the links. Looks like I'll be starting with Remembering the Kana, then moving on to RtK1.

I'm going to pick up the iOS version of Anki to make my flash card reviewing easier on my iPad. Does anyone know of any other good iOS learning tools for japanese? I've seen quite a few on the app store, but haven't found any suggestions here on these forums, other than the official RtK app.

Some of the Japanese-related apps I use:

- Kotaba!
- Learn Japanese (Tae Kim's grammer guide app)
- Remembering the Kanji (official app)
- Human Japanese
- Kana Strokes
- Japanese word of the day

There's a ton more, but usually they're either limited free trials, not very useful or low quality. All of these are free, except the RTK app and Human Japanese (but there's a free lite version).

Kotoba! is a must have. It's a free dictionary app with word/kanji lookup, sentences, etc. For kana you can use Kana Strokes, which shows the stroke order and such.

Human Japanese is nice, it's a guide that teaches you hiragana, katakana, basic vocab and grammar and cultural notes, all at the same time. The content isn't great, but it's very accessible to beginners and the app itself is very decent quality.

btonkin Wrote:Thanks for all the help and the links. Looks like I'll be starting with Remembering the Kana, then moving on to RtK1.

I'm going to pick up the iOS version of Anki to make my flash card reviewing easier on my iPad. Does anyone know of any other good iOS learning tools for japanese? I've seen quite a few on the app store, but haven't found any suggestions here on these forums, other than the official RtK app.

Midori has become my most used app after reading about it here. The handwriting support is the main reason I use it so much. Comes in handy when I need to look something up quickly that I can't read.

I've had pretty good luck getting the iPhone's traditional chinese input mode to produce the characters I want when I don't know the readings... is midori's handwriting input that much better? Is the dictionary part of the app worthwhile?

I've never used the Chinese handwriting input (never even knew there was Chinese handwriting support) so I really couldn't say. As for the dictionary parts compared to Kotoba which I was using before it's a lot better in terms of navigation and ease of use.