shairn

I personally think it's easier to start with the kanji and learn to associate meanings with each of them. Once you have a good base, learning the vocabularies will be much easier seeing as you will know the meaning of the kanji in the word.

Thank you

Katakana is significantly harder to memorize than hiragana simply because it appears less often. To be perfectly honest, unlike the kanji, there's only one real way to get the kana down and that's to practice them repeatedly. So don't give up! It'll stick eventually.

The kanji, while being much more complex, can actually be learned through another method than hammering them into place in your mind. I recommend either www.kanjidamage.com or, if the website's rather harsh language and examples aren't for you, I would point you towards the resource I used, James Heisig's book "remembering the kanji". Some work is required to properly understand and internalize the book's stories, but in the end I find it's the most efficient way of memorizing the kanji needed in everyday life.

As for grammar, I suggest you either keep trying with Tae Kim's guide until it clicks. It's most likely you have trouble with the grammar because you don't have a good enough base of kana/kanji and vocabulary, so working on those might help you with your grammar too. Alternatively, you can try the Genki series of books who offer a complete course on japanese grammar.

The most important part is to never give up. Keep up exposure to the language, challenge yourself, and try to learn something new everyday to keep it fresh. Good luck!

Hehe ill try my best to learn as much as possible, and thank you for your help

Even though I'm definitely not the most experienced on this site, I'm flattered you turned to me for advice. I'd love to help you personally, but I'm not a teacher(yet!) so I can't offer a full course on the workings of the japanese language. Besides, I haven't quite mastered it myself! I can however give you some tools that can give you a good start.

To begin, the difference between hiragana and katakana is relatively simple. Hiragana are used to write words native to the japanese language while katakana are used to write words inherited directly from other languages(Called loanwords) and onomatopeia(Sound effects). Visually, Hiragana tend to be curvy and smooth while katakana often use sharp edges and quick strokes, so it's not too difficult to distinguish one from another. I personally didn't use any resource in particular to learn the kana, picking it up as I went along and actually dablling in a variety of tools, but there is a section on this site where you can practice both syllabaries. It shouldn't take long before you're used to the kana, although katakana could take some more time than its counterpart so don't worry if it doesn't stick as well. After all, katakana is less common than hiragana.

To get started on grammar, there's a variety of tools you can use but there are two that I would personally recommend. If you would rather not spend money or cannot, then I would recommend that you pay a visit to www.guitetojapanese.org for a free guide through pretty much every aspect of japanese grammar. If you don't mind shelling out some money, you can look online for the Genki series of textbooks. They're highly recommended, although they can be expensive depending on where you buy them. Actually, if you can find them in a local store, that would be a much better deal.

Finally, you'll face what is certainly the most daunting aspect of the japanese language, the kanji. I don't want to bury you under information, so I'll leave this untouched for now. I do have resources for the kanji if you're interested, you need only ask. I consider myself comfortably knowledgeable in the realm of the kanji and would be pleased to help.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, although as I've said before I'm not the most experienced JCJPer when it comes to grammar and you would probably get better help from Medyrius-senpai or Twoai-senpai, two of the best on here(In fact, medyrius is ranked number one on the website!).

Thanks for everything that is much appreciated! :) I'm trying to get as many resources, tips and tricks as possible together before starting to learn the language because I want to know exactly what I'm getting into and not get scared and/or bogged down by information overload which might end up putting me off learning.

I've heard a lot about the Kanji and how difficult it is to get used to but I don't plan to be a part timer in the language. Even if it takes 10 years to know the in's and out's I shall stick with it until I know it all.

Thanks for your help again much appreciated :)

Before coming on here I used another website, but I had to stop using it some time ago so I moved here. I picked up a whole lot of vocabulary feom there, but I did pick up a lot from here too. At first I only wanted to get past 1 million, but I thought it'd be more fun to get a round figure. I can't help it, I like to show off as much as the next guy.

And thanks, most people would probably just say I have too much time on my hands :) (which isn't exactly wrong, hah)