Japanese speaker needed :P

[Gors]

If you want to learn Japanese, there are a few pointers to keep in mind:

1- Learn hiragana and katakana first. They are the fundamental parts of all japanese language. You know those kanji? Yeah, they can be fully rendered in hiragana alone.

But then why bothering with Kanji? Sheesh!!

Kanji allows quicker interpretation of the sentence, as the picture itself has a meaning. So even though you don't know how to read it aloud, you will understand its concept. As a bonus, it can reduce ambiguity too. Many kanji are read aloud the same, but because of their symbol, you'll understand what they mean.

2- Don't Give A Shit About Stroke Order. This goes backwards with what everyone say, but it's true. For a foreign learner, it's better to focus on the vocabulary and structure than polishing your letter's appearance. Of course, it's good to learn some basics on stroke order but don't waste your time on it too much.

3- Do not, I say, DO NOT learn kanji without knowing its radicals. The biggest mistake ever conceived by japanese teaching schools is that they try to teach words like westerners do. Do you remember your kid school days, learning related words such as hot/cold, tall/short, big/little? YEAH THIS DOES NOT APPLY IN JAPANESE (especially because these words would be 暑/寒, 高/低, 大/小 respectively).

But... what's a radical??

Radicals are what letters are to us to their kanji. There is no sense teaching a kid who doesn't know the concept of letters, whole words. Equally, if you aren't aware of kanji radicals, then there is no sense learning a full kanji. Want a taste?

Try writing this kanji without prior knowledge: 我 (waga), meaning "I"

Now, if you analyze it by parts, you'll recognize 手 (hand) and 戈 (spear). Combining them together will yield 我. This is because back in Ancient China, warriors would each receive a spear before combat, thus it was a personal item. The fact of a hand holding a spear came to represent the person as a whole, thus "I".

This 戈 radical also appears in many others, such as 城, 成, 盛 ... Which will make your life easier. Much MUCH easier if I do say myself

4- Install furigana in your browser. Furigana are small annotation characters that aid kanji reading, like this . It will help you memorize reading and vocabulary building better. This is useful ONLY after you learn hiragana though.

5- Use http://tangorin.com . It's a English <-> Japanese online dictionary. You can search in English, Japanese and romaji, complete with example sentences. It also has pre-built furigana and clicking on the words and kanji will yield its meaning!!

6- Not sure what a kanji means and can't copypaste it into Tangorin? Use http://kanji.sljfaq.org and write it yourself, or pick the radicals that make it up. Then click on the results!

7- This is surprising, but search kanji here in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page . It will give you the Japanese meaning, PLUS Chinese and Korean. It's interesting that it also has the kanji's etymology, which aids memorizing the strokes in an interesting, fun and easy way.

8- Learn it for the sake of learning a language, and not because of weebshit. 90% of the learners start with this intent and due to their sheer lack of motivation in everything else, they drop learning. Japanese is a language with many nuances and mythological elements so it's much more fun if learned properly.