I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread/discussion about super cool resources that you love using for your Japanese studies. Sharing is caring :). Obviously there's no replacement for authentic communication (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) practice. And you won't have fluency in 6 months using these suggestions, but they can be very helpful in the learning journey.
So I'll start with a list off the top of my head.
1. Skitter: this is my personal fav. For my kanji mastery seekers this can be your best friend. This app, or you can use the website, has loads of goodies. A great dictionary with a plethora of readings for individual radicals, kanji, and kanji combos. But hands down best feature is the writing. If you place everything on the hard setting (which you know u will :D) you will learn correct stroke order, how to shape the strokes (it will penalize you) and you can start learning off any kanji list. They have all the kanji from JLPT N1-N5, Genki 1 and 2, etc. also Skritter uses spaced repetition to help you remember everything. Now this may seem expensive, and it's outrageously expensive, but I can give you tips how to attain the kanji you want to learn within the free trial period to avoid that outrageous price. And after the trial you can keep studying "your words". Just inbox me.
2. Benkyo N1-N5 app: this is great if you want practice on the go for any level of the JLPT. There's quizzes and dictionaries, and the best part is that it's free.
3. TenguGo: This is an android and iPhone app (I think) and it's awesome. It has hiragana and katakana for beginners for free, and 99 cents gets you the paid kanji version. These two apps give you access to lessens, quizzes, flash cards, and a database of over 2,000 kanji.
4. JAPN Amazon: okay obviously this one isn't free, but its great for people who want reading practice, but not that boring crap thats generally available. If you have kindle or the kindle app or an e-reader of some kind you can download books, manga, crochet books, cook books, magazines, etc in Japanese. Just go make an account and you're ready to go. Personally I read manga and it definitely can help you drastically improve in reading comprehension. A lot of manga and other literature have furigana in it to help you with unfamiliar kanji.
Thats all I have off the top of my head. I'd love to hear other peoples' suggestions, recommendations, or hacks so please feel free to share :D.
Matheus thanks for sharing! Mnemonics is definitely a route you can take to learn kanji. It's not the route I use, but everyone learns differently so this is a great alternative for anyone starting to tackle those characters.
My top resources list (use everyday):
[1] https://www.renshuu.org/ : website with tons of resources including materials on kanji, grammar, haiku, games, etc. It has a extensive community-contributed JLPT grammar list from N5 to N1 with many example sentences. I think it is the best website I've found so far.
[2] http://jisho.org/ : a very good dictionary with powerful search features. Its "brother" is Tangorin
[3] rikaichan / rikaikun : rikaichan is popup Japanese-English (and more) dictionary available as a plugin for Firefox (rikaikun for Chrome). It also has a dictionary just for Japanese names (need to install). Very very useful!
[4] http://kanji.koohii.com/ : "website and community dedicated to help you complete the kanji learning method called <em>Remembering the Kanji</em>." It is easy to remember kanji using mnemonics from this website. You can copy from others or create your own and share if you want. Never knew remembering kanji could be that easy. It has more stuff!
[5] Anki : "makes remembering things easy". A flashcard program to learn new vocab (shared decks available).
These are the main ones. Google is my best friend when I am looking for good resources. ^^
Ariana that book you recommended is intense. It's over 600 pages for each book in the series! That's super thorough. I'll have to investigate it further.
For on the go grammar queries Naoko Chino's All About The Particles is very well written. It's small enough to fit in a bag or purse.
And how could I forget the Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary? It's a lifesaver. Great for beginner through intermediate students. :D
My favorite websites and study tools:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org
I own one book. I am really pleased with my Japanese grammar dictonary, I can't live without it. Everyone I've met who owns it says they are also really pleased with it. It's called "Dictonary of Basic Japanese Grammar" by Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui.
