Okay fam, I got you! Before, I was studying Japanese passively on and off, and got nowhere. It's something you have to do daily. But recently, I've focused a lot more on it, and with a lot of research, I've discovered a theoretical method of learning Japanese. (Along with my two cents, I will be providing a few resources.) Not to mention that all I really have is an Android smartphone, so most of this stuff is free. Since you have a few years, that's plenty of time! Well over enough to be conversationally fluent. So, the path to proficiency can be broken down into 5-ish main steps, with some other important stuff with it:
1: Establishing a base in the language
2: Learning Kana
*3: Focus on vocabulary
*4: Start learning kanji
*5: Study the grammar
Final: Practice speaking
*These steps don't really follow an order, and can even be done at the same time.
So basically, you need to learn how to read/write, you need to know a lot of words, and you need to know how to put sentences together. That, and some practice, and you're basically fluent. Although the journey isn't easy....
Step 1, Building the foundation:
Since you've messed around with Memrise, you probably have already completed this step. All this step is is just learning a few words to kinda get the feel for how the language sounds. You know basic meetings and greetings, and hopefully the pronunciations, so that's all there is to it. Once you've become acquainted with Japanese, you can move on to step 2.
Step 2, Learning the Kana:
This step is pretty easy, since you can literally learn each in a day. Consider it a warm-up to kanji. Hiragana is your default alphabet. It can spell any word, and will be basically necessary. Find a chart online, and
make sure you learn the stroke order. It's almost as important as the characters themselves. There's about maybe 60-ish, including the diacritic characters. You have to write them down on paper. First, copy the chart. Then try remaking the chart without looking. When you can do that, try writing some words in hiragana. Every day, write some words or something in Hiragana. If you really wanna make sure you have it down, make some flash cards and review them in random order.
Katakana characters have the exact same sounds as hiragana, but they are used for foreign/loan words, like "computer," or "America." The strokes are more rigid and straight, as opposed to the cursive feel that hiragana has. The method for learning them is the same. Get a chart, learn it, write some words, rinse and repeat, etc. Protip: I thought I could get away with half-assing katakana, but turns out A LOT is actually written with it, so it really is just as essential.
Step 3, Vocabulary:
Memrise really is a good tool. At least for vocab, because their system isn't well designed for grammar. Personally, I'm taking the Genki I course for vocab, because I can't afford the book and I don't like the layout of the pirated version. The point is just to keep doing Memrise to learn new words. Make sure to hit that daily goal, daily.
Step 4, better learn the kanji sooner, rather than later:
While you may have heard that you're gonna have to learn over 2,000 of them, it is a comforting fact that you don't have to learn all ~50,000 of them. When I got to this stage, I was interested in learning them as fast as I could. So, I took my book of choice and set a goal of 100 a day. Not even kidding. This is when I learned that some things worked out better in theory. My plan was to spend all day for 21 days learning all 2,000ish kanji, then spend the rest of the month on review. I finished the first day off schedule, going to bed around midnight. Halfway through the second day, I started having mental seizures and couldn't continue. So while kanji will take over a month, It can still be quick. If you learned about 5 kanji a day, you'd have it done in a year, Adjust that number to the most that is comfortable for you. As for what kanji book to get, check the resources section of this post.
Step 5, do you even grammer?
Knowing how to put together a sentence is just as important as the words themselves. Luckily there's the perfect tutorial out there.
Tae Kim's guide to Japanese Grammar is a fantastic tutorial. I haven't gotten too far into it myself, so I don't have any advice to maximise learning with this one. Just go for it.
Final: Practice makes perfect!
When you get to the point where you know enough words to communicate your thoughts, and you know how to do it in a syntactically correct way, it's time you actually tried it on a real Japanese person. While this is the perfect stage to hire an online Japanese tutor, if you wanna cheap out, there are language exchange sites where you can practice your Japanese, and in return, let your partner practice English. Check the resources section for an example.
Protips: There are some things you can learn to make you sound more native. For starters, you should master conversation fillers. These are words like um... uh... like... etc. Along with those, get the hang of back-channeling, which are words you use to show you're listening, like uh-huh, yeah... etc. Also, it may be very tempting to switch to your mother tongue if you don't know a specific word. Needless to say, this is bad, and you'll need to learn how to think in Japanese. Learn to describe unknown words. For example, it'd be something like this: "Uhh, I forget... What was thing called that has ink and you write with?" "A pen?" "Oh right, a pen." That's a dull example, but hopefully you get the point.
Resources:
Step 1
Memrise is great for building the foundation.
Step 2
It's really easy to Google for some kana charts or the stroke order. There are also some good apps on your app store.
Step 3
Memrise is great for building your vocabulary. Some say that kanji can help build vocab too.
Step 4
Ohhh boi I got you on this one. James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji (RTK) is the way to go. Remember each kanji with a story that associates the picture with it's meaning. It makes kanji fun and easy.
Step 5
I already linked it above, Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar.
Final
Italki - the only site I really know because I'm not at this stage yet.
Extra
These are some of the best books out there for grammar and vocab, or so I hear (i haven't actually tried them yet.) I recommend you try out the Genki I and Genki II textbooks, along with their accompanying workbooks.
I hoped this guide proves useful. I spent way more time than I should've on this, lol. If you have some questions or whatever, shoot me a PM.
Disclaimer, due to it being super late, I am no longer liable for typos, errors, or just plain stupidity. Â
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