A Japanese railway station name board on a tiled wall, the station name in kanji, hiragana and Latin letters above a green band naming the next stops

Your first month

Tick a stop when it is done

How Japanese works

A Japanese sentence puts the verb at the end and marks each word's job with a small particle after it, so "I ate sushi" comes out as "I (topic) sushi (object) ate". Anything obvious from context gets dropped, including "I" and "you", which is why short sentences are normal and natural. Verbs do not change for person or number, there are only two tenses (past and non-past), and nouns have no gender, no plural and no articles. Only two common verbs are irregular. The sounds are friendly to English speakers: five clean vowels and about 100 syllables in total, with no tones. What takes the time is everything around that core: three scripts used together, a politeness system that changes verb endings depending on who you are talking to, counters that change with the shape of the thing being counted, and a vocabulary with almost nothing in common with English apart from the loanwords.

Three scripts, and the order to learn them

Hiragana

46 rounded characters, one per syllable. It spells grammar endings, particles and any word you do not know the kanji for. Everything else is taught through it, so it comes first.

Katakana

The same 46 sounds in angular shapes, used for foreign words, foreign names (including yours) and emphasis. Learners often skimp on it and then stumble over menus for years. Give it a full week.

Kanji

Characters that each carry a meaning and usually two or more readings. Schools in Japan teach 2,136 for everyday use, and the first 100 or so cover a surprising share of signs and simple text.

Learn kanji inside words, not as a list of readings.

The character for "water" is read one way on its own and another way in "Wednesday", and words are the only sensible way to remember which.

Beginner books print small hiragana over each kanji to show how it is read.

Use it as a safety net, and cover it with a card when you reread a page.

You will type far more than you handwrite.

Typing is done by sound, picking the kanji from a list, so recognizing characters matters more than writing every one from memory.

Free kana and kanji practice

A lit station sign at night that spells Kyoto three ways: in hiragana, in Latin letters and in kanji — One name in three scripts

A white station name board standing on an open platform beside a grey, misty sea

Where Japanese can take you

Open one to see where to start

Travel JapaneseEnough to order, ask the way, read station signs and be polite about it. A few weeks of set phrases plus solid katakana changes a trip.

Start here

Learn to say and recognize the ten things you will need on day one of a trip: excuse me, thank you, this one please, how much, where is, the numbers one to ten, and I do not understand. Practice reading the katakana on a restaurant menu photo, since half of it will be English words in disguise.

JLPT PrepThe proficiency test has five levels and is held every December in the US (and in July as well in many other countries). The lowest level gives a first-year learner a fixed word list, about 100 kanji and a date to work toward.

Start here

Download the free sample questions for the lowest level and try the reading section untimed. Mark every word you did not know and make those your first flashcards.

JLPT official site

Kanji StudyTreating the characters as a project of their own, with mnemonics for the parts they are built from and a steady daily quota. It suits people who like collecting and visible progress.

Start here

Learn the numbers one to ten, then day, month, person and mountain: about fifteen kanji you will see everywhere. Write each one five times in the right stroke order and find it in a real sentence.

WaniKani

Manga and ReadingPicture-led graded stories first, then manga aimed at younger readers, which prints the reading over every kanji. Reading for the plot is where vocabulary stops being flashcards.

Start here

Read one starter-level picture story from a free graded reader library tonight. Do not look anything up. Let the pictures carry the words you do not know, and read it again tomorrow.

Tadoku free graded readers

Anime and listeningShows, dramas, podcasts and songs as daily listening practice. Characters often speak in rough or stylized ways, so treat it as ear training and take your own phrasing from a coursebook.

Start here

Pick one slice-of-life show you already know and watch a five-minute scene three times: once with English subtitles, once with Japanese subtitles, once with none. Write down three phrases you caught by ear.

ConversationRegular talk with a tutor or an exchange partner. Polite-form Japanese is very regular, so a beginner can hold a slow, real conversation within a few months.

Start here

Install a free language exchange app this week and send one voice message in Japanese: your name, where you live and that you have just started. Ask your partner to correct one thing.

HelloTalk

The official test site and easy news

What trips beginners up

What to expect, and the habits to drop

Expect the first weeks to feel fast and the following months to feel slow. Kana is quick, and then grammar and vocabulary arrive with nothing familiar to hang them on.
Expect to understand far less by ear than on the page. Spoken Japanese drops subjects, shortens endings and runs words together, and only hours of listening close that gap.
Expect a long road. US government language trainers put Japanese in their hardest group for English speakers, at about 2,200 class hours to professional level.
Do not stay on romanized Japanese. It hides how the language is put together, and every week spent on it is a week of reading habits to undo.
Do not put off kanji until you feel ready. Start with a handful a week in month two, attached to words you already know.
Do not translate word for word from English. Learn whole sentence patterns from your coursebook and swap pieces in and out.
Do not stack three apps and two textbooks. Pick one main course and finish its first volume before you judge it.

A row of dark wooden menu plaques hand-lettered in white kana, each with a price at the bottom — A wall menu written in kana

Where to learn and look things up

A free online dictionary is the tool you will open every day. Look a word up in English, kana or kanji, or draw a character you cannot read.
A free online grammar reference with one page per particle and verb form answers most "why is this word here" questions faster than a textbook index.
A free downloadable coursebook from Japan's cultural agency is a complete beginner course with audio, if you would rather not buy one yet.
Video lessons from a native-speaking teacher are worth it for hearing each new pattern said aloud many times.
A spaced-repetition flashcard app schedules your reviews. Make cards from your own coursebook rather than downloading a deck of 6,000 words.
An online tutor for 30 minutes a week gives you someone to answer out loud. Community tutors on lesson marketplaces often charge less than a restaurant lunch.
A learner forum is the place to ask why a sentence uses one particle and not another.

Dictionary, grammar, a free course and a forum

A white booklet titled First Steps in Japanese, in hiragana and in English, lying on a dark wooden table — A first Japanese booklet

About the kit

Everything you need to begin is free, so nothing here is marked essential. The two recommended lines are the things free apps do worst: a coursebook that teaches grammar in an order that builds, and a workbook that makes you write kana by hand until the shapes stay put. Everything after that depends on where you are heading. The kanji, test, travel and reading add-ons match the directions above, and each can wait until you know you want it. The grammar dictionary at the end is for later, once you start meeting sentences your coursebook has not reached.

Wooden shelves packed with numbered manga volumes, spines facing out — Manga volumes on a shelf

Pack the study bag

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there. The coursebook and the kana workbook start in the bag. The kanji, test, travel and reading books stay out until you switch them on in section 04 or with the chips in the cart, and the grammar dictionary stays out until you add it.

Beginner Japanese coursebook

recommended · Course

This is the course itself: dialogues, vocabulary lists, grammar notes and exercises in an order that builds, with audio. It is what turns scattered app phrases into sentences you can make yourself.

budget

Elementary Japanese Volume One: This Beginner Japanese Language Textbook Expertly Teaches Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, Speaking & Listening (Online Media Included)

4.6(324)

$17.05

Learning Japanese

Your first month

How Japanese works

Three scripts, and the order to learn them

Where Japanese can take you

What trips beginners up

Where to learn and look things up

About the kit

Pack the study bag

Beginner Japanese coursebook

Hiragana and katakana writing workbook

Kanji learning book

Kanji flash cards

JLPT N5 study guide

JLPT N5 practice test book

Japanese travel phrasebook

Japanese graded reader

Learn-Japanese-through-manga book

Japanese grammar dictionary