Any protips on learning japanese?

Yo, back from the dead here!

I've revived my idea of wanting to learn japanese, and was wondering if you have any ideas for how to stay on track learning a new language?

The stuff I have to help me is Genki 1 Textbook & Workbook (2nd edition), a book for learning to write hiragana and one for katakana, and a box with flash cards.

Now, I'm very much on my own in this, so I need some way to set up and track my progress, and perhaps something easy to read to help my motivation, as well as something to just keep my spirits up in willingness to keep moving forward.

http://japanese-lesson.com/

I have a folder on my harddrive with 30 GB worth of Japanese lessons (for english speakers), though I have no idea how to share something with you of that size.

Got it from a friend through a USB stick and I have no idea where he's got it from.

edit: things from Gengo and things from Pimsleur apparently, as well as a whole variety of unsorted things, including light novels, dictionaries, phrasebooks, readers, textbooks, books on tourism and books on japanese folk songs.

Thanks to me connecting my purchase of a samsung phone to dropbox, I have 50GB of free storage, but I suppose you would need the same amount of space for that, since we would need to create a shared folder between us. EDIT: It would also take ages for you to upload.

I'll give that link a try, though, thanks.

I do happen to have 50GB of free dropbox space for the exact same reason, but it would indeed take ages for me to upload, so I'll refrain from doing that for now.

If you can find another (easier way), let me know.

Get the kana down asap so you can get to actually "learning the language". Hiragana is far more important than katakana but learning both sets shouldn't be a hassle. Just grind the shit out of them. Memorizing them really isn't difficult and should barely take days to a week if you're serious about it; the phrase "I'm learning kana"/"I know kana" is like the staple way to identify people who haven't taken learning seriously whatsoever, because it's just so incredibly basic.

Get a flash card app for your phone or something so you can practice anywhere.

After that, Tae Kim is always good. Actually there are kana exercises in there too so do those, but the guide is mostly about grammar.
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

Learning the vocab in each section at the same time is a good idea and you should be able to see a lot of the same words used in Genki too. You don't need to learn the kanji right away (learning at Genki's pace is fine), but you should be able to read the hiragana beside the vocab words without much trouble, and you should y'know learn what the vocab words mean.

Besides that just follow the Genki chapters and do the exercises.

Taking classes is probably the best way to keep yourself on track and motivated, but besides that maybe keep a spreadsheet of the stuff you've done and mark your progress, because you should probably have a schedule of some sort to make sure you don't slack off.

Drake wrote:

the phrase "I'm learning kana"/"I know kana" is like the staple way to identify people who haven't taken learning seriously whatsoever, because it's just so incredibly basic.

Hey there, I took it serious for 2 months or something.

Drake wrote:

Get the kana down asap so you can get to actually "learning the language". Hiragana is far more important than katakana but learning both sets shouldn't be a hassle. Just grind the shit out of them. Memorizing them really isn't difficult and should barely take days to a week if you're serious about it; the phrase "I'm learning kana"/"I know kana" is like the staple way to identify people who haven't taken learning seriously whatsoever, because it's just so incredibly basic.

Get a flash card app for your phone or something so you can practice anywhere.

After that, Tae Kim is always good. Actually there are kana exercises in there too so do those, but the guide is mostly about grammar.
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

Learning the vocab in each section at the same time is a good idea and you should be able to see a lot of the same words used in Genki too. You don't need to learn the kanji right away (learning at Genki's pace is fine), but you should be able to read the hiragana beside the vocab words without much trouble, and you should y'know learn what the vocab words mean.

Besides that just follow the Genki chapters and do the exercises.

Taking classes is probably the best way to keep yourself on track and motivated, but besides that maybe keep a spreadsheet of the stuff you've done and mark your progress, because you should probably have a schedule of some sort to make sure you don't slack off.

That's some solid advice there, much appreciated.

Now, one thing I'd like to mention; I did work my way through the chapter about hiragana, finishing it and all, but I still had to go to the front of the book and check the letters all the time. I might be a somewhat slow learner, should I just repeat it for a few weeks to get the hang of it?

Also, do you have any suggestions for basic anime (or any other japanese show) that I can use for practicing my verbal understanding, once I get through the basics in the books? I read on kotaku once that japanese dating sims is a good place to learn vocabulary, as the words are pronounced together with being written, I figured I could give that a shot too, even though I've never played dating sims before.

EDIT: The slow learner thing could be that I haven't challenged myself on this level for years as well.

Yeah I don't mean you'll be able to read perfectly or quickly after a week, but you should probably be able to get flash cards down without looking many of them up, I think. If you do have to look them up, grind those repeatedly and then try again. And yes, revising all the time is important so you don't forget stuff you just did.