2. Fetching the tools.
We live in an era where the electronics do all the boring job for us. There are a huuuuge lot of tools out there, it would be foolish to not make use of them.
First thing, know that there are free tools for everything. Even if you have a very limited budget, you can always find a tool somewhere that will do the job just fine. Dictionnaries, grammatical guides, flashcards, they're not only all over the internet, there's also a lot of them as iPhone or Android applications. And even if there's no free one that interests you, the costly ones are usually rather cheap.
Free or not, that is entirely your choice. I personally had no income of money when I started, so I went purely with free options. However, I have a certain experience that the more I paid for something, the more likely I'm going to make full use of it. Just make your research before actually purchasing something, there are super expensive tools out there that are actually seen as inneficient.
Now then, to get started, go ahead and create a "Japanese practice" folder in your bookmark. Add some sub-folders if you need some order. The idea is simple: everytime you find a tool that you find interesting, throw it in the bookmark. You think it might be useful in a later stage of your practice? Throw it in! It does not matter if you are actually going to use it or not, we are just building a list of tools. I'd say that this bookmark folder is by far the largest folder in my whole bookmark.
The reason I did that is that I don't want to have an "empty" day of practice. So say, I'm about to finish that book of grammar. I want to make sure that by the time I am done with it, I am already ready to move on to the next practice. So by having all those tools already somewhere easy to fetch, it's much easier to have a quick test on each of them and compare in order to decide which one fits my learning style the most. Also, say that an unforeseen problem happens with one of your tools, like not explaining a point clearly or running out of material earlier than it made it seem like, you will always have a plan B or C ready in there.
Before starting your first practice, it would most likely be a good idea to do a general search. Try to find tools for all the following:
-Dictionaries (words and kanji)
-Grammar lessons.
-Flashcard softwares or applications.
-Online exchange sites (Finding someone to talk with in Japanese).
Found anything interesting? Maybe they will end up being better than what I have used. Maybe you'll end up wanting something more specific than originally expected. Just don't spend weeks to decide, that's time wasted for little.
I will mention what I used, along with suggestions as they become important in later steps. But there are three things that should be taken care of first.
-Choose your starting language. English, being the popular language, will have the best tools available. If you already speak an Asiatic language, it might feel more natural to go from there as grammar and words are likely more similar than a roman language. However, you need to be fluent in the language, which means that your native language might be the best choice. Just don't try to pull up tools using different languages, as it will just feel like you're learning Japanese twice. I personally went English despite being native French.
-Find a couple dictionaries. My personal favorite is www.jisho.org (or classic.jisho.org, which is the old interface it had when I started). It has so many ways of searching words you want, including a very efficient Kanji search by radicals. And each word present all the information you need in a clear way. If the translation is unclear, you want a second dictionary to reference to. I've personally started looking for more details in japanese sources, such as Kotobank, but that's for a more advanced stage.
-Install an IME keyboard on your computer. IME are an input method that automatically converts what you write into kana or kanji. Type "hi" and it becomes ひ. Press space afterwards, and you get to choose between multiple Kanji like 日 and 火. No need for a Japanese keyboard! Do take the time to set up shortcuts so that switching between keyboard languages is as fast and natural as possible. There's multiple choices for IME, but my personal choice was Google IME.
With all that done, time to move on to actual practice.
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