Hi Cayenne Kegley,

I disagree with Ariana post on how to approach learning. She did make some great points on how to study kana, kanji and grammar. However I feel like that only applies to learners who are not in your situation (learners who don't have someone they can talk with and who is willing to help them.) 

You should definitely learn the kana and kanji but first just learn kana and get the sounds down in the language. Then learn vocabulary through a lot of listening sources like podcasts, websites (https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/lesson01/index.html is a good one), and Youtube lessons. 

After spending about 1 month honing you listening skills on basic subjects and mastering kana, then you can begin to have structured conversations with your dad. Ask him if he would be able to help you speak about certain topics like cooking, daily activities or hobbies for 30 minutes a day and then use that time to figure out what you don't know how to say and ask him how to say it (or google how to say it).

You can use memrise to learn kana (and later kanji). And you can use regular hand-made flashcards for writing down the phrases that you learn from your talking sessions with your dad.

As you progress, you can even ask your dad to use more and more Japanese with you(especially concerning topics you have talked about during your talking sessions). This will be more ideal than trying to learn Japanese alone before speaking, since you have someone who knows the language and is willing to speak with you.

Eventually, you should go on to study using textbooks and learn kanji. However I believe you should work on your speaking and listening skills rather than reading and writing.

Nice daddy.

I wshi my dad can speak Englih enoug to teach me.

There is no "best" way, some methods work great for people and others suffer because we are all different. It's all opinion. However, I will give my opinion on what the best method is. This is the method I used to learn the alphabets and build my volcabulary.

I started learning hiragana, then katakana. I would a set of kana (usu. 3-5). Every morning and night, I would try to write the kana I just learned, and all previous kana I've learned, using my memory on a whiteboard. Then, practice the sounds each kana made. I learned hiragana and katakana a little over a month.

I moved on the kanji. I highly reccomend learning how to write all of the radicals before begining, it will help in the long run. Big kanji were very overwhelming for me starting out, I just saw a bunch of lines at first. 雨、食、義、露、雲 are examples of kanji which were difficult for me to remember how to write. But then I learned radicals, which made everything 10 times easier. I also would make up little phrases which would help me how to write it, and it's onyomi (reading used in compound words).

Learning to write the kanji will help you remember it better. I set a goal of how many kanji I wanted to learn each month, and before I knew it, I knew nearly 1000. Be patient when learning. Getting that far took me a year. There is no special trick, the only way to do it, is to just do it.

Study grammar a little while after you study kanji for a while, and think you are ready to make your own sentences. There are a lot of great textbooks which explain the grammar and give examples how to use it. Good luck!