3. Path to the Point of No Return.
As said in the previous step, what I call the "Point of no return" is where you can start merging hobby and practice together. I love video games, but perhaps you are more of a book or a movie person? Whatever you like, it's important to first determine all you will need before tackling a beginner-level media.
The goal is not to actually understand everything, but rather to be able to not get lost in there. Despite only playing english games (that's all we have available around my part), my english did not get anywhere before my first year of english in school, since nothing made sense to me. As soon as I learned the basics, I started being able to understand the function of each words, and before I knew it, I was always ahead of the class' level thanks to video games.
We're looking for the same effect here. Unfortunately, Japanese is radically more different to English than English is to French. So we need a stronger base step. For video games, that goes like this:
-Hiragana and Katakana knowledge.
-Basic grammar structure.
-Being able to identify and search Kanji.
Sounds simple? It really is, as long as you keep it up every day. Here's some more details on each part.
Hiragana/Katakana
Estimated time: 2-4 weeks
Those are the base and easy alphabets for Japanese. Both have the same sounds, but serve a different purpose. You will see Hiragana everywhere and Katakana is used mostly for foreign words.
There are two things to use here. First, you want a website to teach you the details of each Kana. Their reading, how they are pronounced, and maybe also a trick for learning them. I had personally found a site where they assimilated the Kana to a picture, like あ = Apple = A. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the website again. It's however not necessary, as this can be easily learned through brute force, and it's going to sink into your memory afterwards.
Second, you want something to practice them. For reading, there is this site which I found simple and efficient: Real Kana
It's best to actually practice writing them too. For that, I had found an homebrew for the Nintendo DS, but you need something extra on top of the console, which I assume most people don't. For others, there's a huge lot of choices on any platform you desire, you won't have any problem finding something. Even a regular flashcard software + Pen and paper works.
Basic Grammar
Estimated time: 1-3 months
Grammar sites and books are all over the place too. How far each of them lead to differs, but even if one heads into too complicated levels, you can always just stop and continue that on a later stage.
However, I did something unusual for that practice. I have went through multiple sites and books. I started with a site (that ended too fast) and a book that explained things simply and without too much focus on the vocabulary, just to get a feel of how grammar works. Multiple months later, in the middle of the Kanji practice, I picked a new site that had more indepth explanations of each grammar point, and read through it. And at the end of the Kanji practice, I picked once again a different book, focused on actually giving exercises.
This gave me knowledge of all grammar points from different points of view. The books were from native sources, while the sites were from foreign sources. The interval I used them also allowed me to not grow rusty on them. Going back over the basics can be a good idea once in a while when the goal is not to understand, but to make it natural.
Here are the sources I've used:
Minna no Nihongo (book)
Genki (book)
Tae Kim's guide
Kanji:
Estimated time: 6-18 months.
This is what everyone considers the hardest part of Japanese. There are a total of 2000 Kanji that are considered "common use". Each Kanji has an image, one or multiple meanings, and often more than one possible reading. Most people give up in the middle of this, with no surprise.
I knew brute forcing them wouldn't work for me. I needed a plan. I have done a lot of research on that. Methods to memorize them, tools to practice them. And I came up with an answer that blasted me through the whole thing.
First, the goal. We want to be able to tell Kanji apart from each other and be able to search them. This means that we will NOT learn their readings yet. It's a lot of trouble, and most agree that they are better learned through words. As such, for this step, we will only be learning the meaning of each Kanji. This is all we need.
The method: Remembering The Kanji. This is a book that aims to teach the Kanji through radicals. What are radicals? Each complicated Kanji can be divided in multiple radicals. If you know the meaning of each Radical, it's easier to make up something up for the Kanji. For example, the Kanji 木 (tree) also serves as a radical and can make a new Kanji like 森 (tree*3 = forest) or 本 (tree + line(cut) = book). Memorization suddenly becomes a game about making up catchy stories or pictures.
The practice: I simply followed the book, accompanied with a site specially made by fans to accompany the book: Reviewing the Kanji. This site makes Flashcard for each Kanji, ordered identically to the book. Not only that, anyone can post their idea of a story and can vote on which ones they liked. If you don't fancy RTK's stories, you can pick another one in the comments. Do however give a try by yourself before looking up, as stories you make up yourself tend to be easier to remember.
Many notes:
-The Kanji are ordered by radicals. This means you will be first learning Kanji with easy radicals first, while meanings and usage might be obscure. A perfect example being 唱 (mouth + sun*2 = chant). In orther words, its aim is reaching knowledge of all Kanji as fast and easy as possible, rather than getting knowledge of useful and common Kanji first.
-There are 3 RTK books, but we are only interested in the first one. The second one teaches readings per Kanji, which is seen as innefficient. The 3rd one teaches an additional 1000 Kanji, which are all uncommon and are better learned as encountered. If you want usable Kanji, you could learn the 1st and 2nd year Kanji through brute force: nearly none of them look complicated and many are actually used as radicals.
-Learning all 2000 Kanji might not be necessary. I went for the whole thing, but I feel like stopping somewhere around 1500 might actually be enough. The reason is that afterwards, you'll have earned the necessary skills to tell even two unknown Kanji apart from each other and being able to search them, which is what we're aiming for. In other words, the remaining Kanji could be learned as we go through gradual immersion.
-Decide of your pace (new Kanji per day) and never ever skip a day of practice. The way the Flashcards work will make your next day's practice twice as long if you skip a day. If you feel you are getting overwhelmed, lower your pace or have a week without any new Kanji. Splitting a day's practice into multiple parts (like morning and evening) is also a good idea.
-If any radical or Kanji uses a keyword that you just can't remember, say it's a word that you're actually unfamiliar with, you can do a bit of investigation in dictionaries and try to pick a more memorable keyword. Do make sure that it's unique, as you don't want two Kanji using the same keyword.
-Don't just imagine the Kanji in your head when reviewing, do also draw it. I have a nice pack of 20 or so paper sheets, all filled with 500 Kanji from my practices. This builds up a stronger memory of how they look. And it also feels nice to see those papers pile up, a nice trophy of your hard-work that you can show off to others.
Once all of that is done, we have passed the point of no return, and are ready to jump into the next step: gradual immersion.
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