sorry if this is a stupid question lol but ive watched several videos on youtube about how to start learning japanese and many people say the order you learn japanese depends on your purpose for learning it. im mostly learning for fun but my main goal is to be able to read japanese and also understand it being spoken. ive only started learning hiragana, what should my next steps be? thanks!
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Step one check out the starters guide and wiki in the sidebar
Try out different things to find out what works for you…example, some people just grab anki and use a prebuilt deck to learn the most common 2k words and start using the genki series right away…I never used a premade decks or genki….after kana i went straight to reading 1 hr a day (by reading stuff i liked…im a gamer, so i played games)…and dumped basically all words i came across into anki..then reviewed several times a day..al while learning kanji from ikanji (ios app) and using nihongo sou matome instead of genki, just to get some structure in my learning
But as mentioned before, check out this sub’s startup guide…it might give you more ideas how to start
kana(a few days)->textbooks(a few months)->read/listen/speak(years)
I’d recommend the https://japanese.moe/ guide, especially if you’re going to prioritize reading over speaking and care about having fun more than good grades in class.
Listening to anime and such is really important too. If you can hear your native language then listening is the main way that you process language and you’ll put yourself at a disadvantage by neglecting that.
But they have lots of advice for manga and visual novels, which will get you into reading as quickly as reasonably possible.
I personally feel that I spent *way* too much energy studying grammar, so much that I feel myself needing to forget those rules and just write or say stuff. But I’ve also talked to people who did basically no grammar study and somewhat regret it.
Mostly because things took longer and were more frustrating. Their Japanese is fine.
If you do use a textbook, remember that the best thing it can do for you is to help you make sense of things earlier or more easily. Nobody ever got good by building a little pillow fort and sticking to learner’s materials exclusively. The earlier you start actually using Japanese the better.
[My advice](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/s5mtva/comment/ht1lo0x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for beginning – may help.