You should definitely know your kana (two phonetic alphabets) and know the proper pronunciations. Take your time with this because your accent will be extremely important. If you have a poor accent, people will assume you aren't good at Japanese. After you've got the kana and accent down, you have to keep studying basic words. Once you know some basic words, learn how to use them with proper Japanese grammar. The grammar is more complicated than English grammar so take your time to study it. After you learn how the grammar works and you know some words you will be in my place where you basically just have to study vocabulary. Just remember that there is always room for improvement. がんばって!
February 24, 2015 at 10:02pm