just do as much RtK as you feel like and try some immersion like watching japanese tv or listening to japanese music (if you can take it, lol)

anything you do that relates to japanese stuff = learning Japanese

Basically what aphasiac said.  You can do things in parallel with RTK1.  Learning the kana is very easy.  I'm also learning grammar and trying to read simple things.  I even started a lang-8 account and post simple entries there from time to time, and try to help out by correcting English entries.

ta12121 wrote:

aphasiac wrote:

1) Start studying grammar - read through and maybe even SRSing Tae Kim.

2) Learn and start practising hiragana and katakana.

3) Immersion - watch as much anime and dramas as possible

agreed. One thing I would recommend is learn katakana first. Why? That's the one a lot of people have trouble with, even when they reach an a high level. Hiragana isn't hard, plus you'll get reinforcement via learning kanji readings.

I don't think the difficulties people have with katakana have to do with it being harder than hiragana, so it's not the script so much as the loanwords themselves in terms of the exposure to such words as well as L1 knowledge conflicts in the case of English speakers at least. In that sense, I think learning hiragana first is better since you'll be seeing it more, and the way Heisig sets it up in Remembering the Kana makes it useful to do so, but learn them both up front quickly (or rather, it'll be quick because it's easy), and make sure not to give katakana words short shrift when learning vocabulary.

Last edited by nest0r (2011 February 10, 8:00 pm)