Learning Vocabularies and Kanji is all good but....

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  yonayona July 6, 2012 at 9:31am

  I really recommend the Genki books for grammar. It's what I used when I studied Japanese at university and it was very easy to understand. And don't forget reading and listening exercises, grammar comes naturally when you study those.
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  shairn July 6, 2012 at 10:52am

  Although a grammar section would be great on this website, until there is one you can get some practice in the reading section. If you want straight up grammar, I would also recommend the genki textbooks. If you don't want to spend money, you can also use Tae Kim's guide to japanese grammar at www.guidetojapanese.org.
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  JayHill July 9, 2012 at 6:01am

  The sources I like the best (because they are very complete and very free) are:
  http://ww8.tiki.ne.jp/~tmath/language/jpverbs/index.htm and
  http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
  
  They don't exactly have exercises, but they have good examples and explanations, so you should be able to put your vocabulary to good use.
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  xMakoReactantx July 14, 2012 at 5:38am

  For grammar, I like using Tae Kim's guide to Japanese, Wattpad (which has plenty of free Japanese resources), and Anki SRS flashcards. If you have an Android phone you can download AnkiDroid from the Google Play market for free.
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  xMakoReactantx July 14, 2012 at 5:40am

  There's also dev.jgram.org if you feel like wading through expansive lists that A) have possibly irrelevant entries and B) may or may not have been checked
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  Nahizu July 18, 2012 at 7:25pm

  to be able to learn a language, one must listen and getting used to it. i suggest watching japanese movie or anime can be a good way to learn the language besides learning it formally.
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  JamesCarswell July 22, 2012 at 9:38am

  Anime doesn't really teach you much though =P Only ばか,うるさい ,おにーーーちゃん！！　きさま、おれ　and some other stuff hahaha
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  Medyrius July 23, 2012 at 12:59am

  I'm sorry James-san but I must disagree with that ^^
  Not japanese only, but every language is learnt faster with a listening support... The fact is most people watch subbed anime and don't pay attention to the listening itself, but those who really pay attention to it can learn a lot more that just those few casual words...
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  Akamaru012 July 23, 2012 at 4:56am

  Thanks for all the replies. I'll check out those sites you guys mentioned.
  
  As for the Genki book, it's a good book for beginners, though personally I think it's too slow for my taste. But then again maybe it's just me :P
  
  As for watching anime and movies, they're a good tool to use to listen because they're being spoken by native Japanese. But until you build up enough vocabularies, you won't learn much. I remember trying to learn Japanese through watching anime and boy I didn't learn much from it until I build up more vocabularies.
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  kaleb_zero July 26, 2012 at 1:11am

  I really recommend the set of courses at http://www.YesJapan.com. One huge advantage of the YJ course is that pretty much everything can be listened to by native speakers - every example sentence, vocabulary, grammar example, and reading comprehension exercise can be played.
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  xMakoReactantx July 29, 2012 at 3:48am

  What's better to pick up speech patterns and sentences? Anime or streamed TV?
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  shairn July 29, 2012 at 8:15am

  Definitely TV. Voice actors rarely speak as they would casually.
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  Medyrius July 30, 2012 at 7:32am

  Anime speech sounds a little childish and it's very casual sometimes... Better not use it if you're to speak jap in official environments...
  
  I definitely prefer it though ^^
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  SloanAkira August 29, 2012 at 2:26am

  I really dont like the genki books. At first it's cool. But then it got lazy in the chapters and doesn't list conjugation rules. Better for you to write down conjugation rules and post on your wall. All at once to see. I learn grammar this way.φ(．．;)BYE~~~~~★
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  Kurizu208 August 29, 2012 at 3:36am

  I recommend the new second edition books. They teach stuff soooo much better.
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  Bren August 31, 2012 at 5:17am

  Instead of anime, why not watch drama? It's very close to how Japanese is really used.
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  Midenhall September 1, 2012 at 4:20pm

  Speaking of drama, I recommend "Yuusha Yoshihiko To Maou No Shiro" if you like [low-budget] comedy-dramas (Note: contains a bit of sexual humor). You will get the most out of this if you have played or have some knowledge on Dragon Quest RPG series by Square-Enix, as it is a DQ parody. My avatar comes from this TV Drama :P