Ok, I've finally worked out some time to study Japanese. It's been a dream of mine for a long time, and as such I've already attempted studying it a couple of times (as such, I'm familiar with the very basic things, hiragana and katakana).
Finally, though, I've worked out some time and shaped my ideas on what to do. I thought that, given that my main use for Japanese would be reading some japanese blogs/forums (which is mostly what I'm interested in, I'd rather watch subbed anime and read translated manga, at least for the first time), I'd work more on the reading part.
The idea is: I don't have to care about onyomi and kunyomi pronunciation, how something is pronounced when coupled with something else (人, "jin", vs. 人間, "ningen", but still 巨人, "kyojin") and I don't care about how to sound formal or how to tone a phrase correctly and stuff like that. I don't even care about kanji strokes or even correct phrase construction (did I mention that I don't plan on writing?) (at least, not at first). I only need to learn the most common kanji and most of the rules, getting some guided examples and then I'm ready to go (mostly).
It's not like this is going to be easy, but at least much easier than taking on the whole challenge.
However, I need some opinions on how to work on this:
-Which kanji should I study first? How many would be a good amount to start with?
-Where to learn the grammar? (I assume Tae Kim's guide would be good enough, right?)
-Where can I get some examples of phrases in Japanese translated (if possible, with an explanation, like "Learning Japanese: the Manga Way") online? I'm not planning on spending anything on this (not now, at least), are there online textbooks to cover this?
Thanks for reading.
Finally, though, I've worked out some time and shaped my ideas on what to do. I thought that, given that my main use for Japanese would be reading some japanese blogs/forums (which is mostly what I'm interested in, I'd rather watch subbed anime and read translated manga, at least for the first time), I'd work more on the reading part.
The idea is: I don't have to care about onyomi and kunyomi pronunciation, how something is pronounced when coupled with something else (人, "jin", vs. 人間, "ningen", but still 巨人, "kyojin") and I don't care about how to sound formal or how to tone a phrase correctly and stuff like that. I don't even care about kanji strokes or even correct phrase construction (did I mention that I don't plan on writing?) (at least, not at first). I only need to learn the most common kanji and most of the rules, getting some guided examples and then I'm ready to go (mostly).
It's not like this is going to be easy, but at least much easier than taking on the whole challenge.
However, I need some opinions on how to work on this:
-Which kanji should I study first? How many would be a good amount to start with?
-Where to learn the grammar? (I assume Tae Kim's guide would be good enough, right?)
-Where can I get some examples of phrases in Japanese translated (if possible, with an explanation, like "Learning Japanese: the Manga Way") online? I'm not planning on spending anything on this (not now, at least), are there online textbooks to cover this?
Thanks for reading.