掲示板 Forums - how do i learn japanese from 0?

renshuu.org is a good place to start I think.

Personally I used games like "wagotabi" and "hiragana forbidden speech" for my first steps, and I do think this was a good idea.These games have only 350 resp. 250 words currently, but they make it up by focusing much more on teaching you these few words. Of course, after reaching the end of the games, you will return here because for the real world you will need much more words and grammar than these games can offer.

There are many people out there who promote just listening and reading japanese as a way to learn. The word they use is "immersion". This does not work all that well for me, it is a useful addition but not my main focus. Which is not to say that these people lie, just that not every way works for everyone.

In any case much depends on a) how you learn best and b) what your budget (time, money) is. There are courses out there which cost a lot, but may be much better. Or not, like the one I tried. There is so much which depends on you personally and your situation that a better answer is impossible.

Anyway, if in doubt start either here on renshuu or look up the free demos for the games I mentioned, or any number of other free resources out there. The main thing is starting and not giving up the first time it gets difficult.

Have fun and hope that helps.

I'm starting from 0 with renshuu

I would definitely start with Hiragana and Katakana and DEFINITELY utilize free resources like YouTube. Then start learning some basic words while slowly adding in some basic Kanji. Genki is always a good resource for learning Japanese but do set some goals for yourself like “I’ll know 5 kanji by the end of the week” or “I’ll know Hiragana and Katakana by the end of the month” and go over the words you know every day since that will stick them in your mind but go at your own pace and don’t rush. Try to make learning fun for yourself to keep you engaged but I hope you Japanese journey goes well!

I am still a beginner, so I don't know if I am Qualified enough to answer but I will tell you what I did anyway:

1. Learn Hiragana – the first step in learning a new language is learning its Alphabet first.

2. Learn basic grammar and a few words – learn grammar such as sentence structure, particle, verb conjugation (Do not study much about it but a little such as -masu form , -ta form , -masen form, etc...). Now , learn a few words such as わたし、あなた、なまえ、おおきい , etc... (Do not jump into kanji yet, wait until you're familiar with the Japanese words) and try to use the grammar rules you learnt by forming sentences using the words you learnt (for vocabulary, I recommend using a site like renshuu.org) and for grammar, there are plenty of videos available on YouTube.

3. Expand your Vocabulary and listen/read to as much Japanese as you can – this phase is endless, just learn more words and expose yourself to Japanese that you can understand. And don't forget “Learning Japanese doesn't has a progress bar, as long as you're better than what you were a week ago, you're doing great”.

Important Points:

* do not forget to learn katakana , either learn it alongside hiragana or seperately, I don't know about it since you won't see many words with katakana in the beginning...

* do not forget to keep improving your grammar , I don't really focus on it yet since I'm still a beginner but you should after a certain point of time.

* the method and ways of learning work differently for everyone, there is no absolute method to learn.

Happy learning. :D

Duolingo is good for kanji and kana but renshuu is great for basically every thing else. At least for me