It seems like there's so many different things to take in: kanji, hiragana, katakana, and am I correct in thinking romaji is mainly for helping with pronunciation? Sorry if any questions are dumb, I am very much a noob.
I started doing kanji flash cards, but I just wanted advice on whether or not that's a good place to start. Even the few I know I don't know how they're used in a sentence. I read that putting different kanji together gives a whole new meaning than they do individually. It's all a little overwhelming at this point!
As everyone else has mentioned, start with the kanas, seeing as how that gets you off of roumaji sooner and allows you to quit crippling yourself. For example, most people when they see "hora" will pronounce it as "hor-uh" instead of "hoh-rah". And that has more to do with how we were all taught to speak and sound out written words in English than anything else.
Now, contrary to popular opinion, I think you should learn katakana first. And half the people I mention this to think I'm crazy, but I think there's some benefit to it. Most beginners tend to struggle with katakana because they don't encounter it as often as its counterpart at first, which is why I see many friends have near breakdowns over trying to read something that really shouldn't be that hard. (Sadly, only mild exaggeration there). I personally learned katakana first and although it was done entirely on accident, my reading skills were already a lot stronger because of it when I finally did get around to hiragana. This also allowed for me to learn how to write foreign names and learn loanwords and onomatopoeia that I still use to this day. From there, I picked up hiragana, and then I was able to read anything that had furigana above it.
While mastering the kanas, DO NOT NEGLECT THE OTHER ASPECTS OF THIS LANGUAGE. And by that I mean, learn new words, grammatical functions, conjugations and speak and listen to as much Japanese as possible. Pretty soon you'll be adding reading and writing to that regimen, so make sure you're working on your other skills to keep everything at around the same level.
As for kanji,
wait. I mean just wait. Master the kanas, pick up about 500-1000 words, be able to spit out a few sentences on command, and THEN start learning kanji. There's this idea I read about where when you know the meaning of and how to say a word, adding the kanji becomes a lot easier. I have literally seen this in action too. For example, I knew what the word "setsuna" meant and how to say it, so when it came time for me to learn the kanji, 'it was like greeting an old friend.'
I could go on all day about ways to learn kanji and Japanese in general, but I think this is a good start for now. When you think you're ready to move on, maybe revive this thread or make a new one. Either way, hit up Tofugu somewhere along the way and just dive straight into all the articles on that blog. There is a TON of information on that site, but so much of it is necessary and useful that you forget you just spent 5 hours of your life reading probably over 100 articles. (Don't judge me; this is what happens when I have too much free time.)
Anyway, happy learning, and I hope I didn't just overwhelm you even more. f>~<')
