How to go about learning Japanese?
I would like to learn Japanese and I would like to do so by teaching myself. I have studied a language before, (that language being French) and I feel fairly fluent in using it, after having studied it for many years. I have also studied Mandarin Chinese and I'm not as good with it as I am with French. However, from my own personal research, I have discovered that the Japanese Kanji characters are characters that originated in China, so would I have a an advantage in remembering the Kanji, if those Kanji are also used in Mandarin? I have already started walking on my path of learning Japanese, as I am currently trying to remember the Hiragana.

Seeing that you have already spent the time to read this 'brief' introduction, I will not bore you anymore and get on to the question:

1) After learning Hiragana, should I start to learn Katakana or Kanji or should I start to learn something else?

Any extra advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Question

How to go about learning Japanese?
I would like to learn Japanese and I would like to do so by teaching myself. I have studied a language before, (that language being French) and I feel fairly fluent in using it, after having studied it for many years. I have also studied Mandarin Chinese and I'm not as good with it as I am with French. However, from my own personal research, I have discovered that the Japanese Kanji characters are characters that originated in China, so would I have a an advantage in remembering the Kanji, if those Kanji are also used in Mandarin? I have already started walking on my path of learning Japanese, as I am currently trying to remember the Hiragana.

Seeing that you have already spent the time to read this 'brief' introduction, I will not bore you anymore and get on to the question:

1) After learning Hiragana, should I start to learn Katakana or Kanji or should I start to learn something else?

Any extra advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

Answer

Hello fellow Japanese learner! I have been studying japanese for the past 5-6 years, and i have taken japanese classes up to 3rd year university level, and from my experience, typically after learning hiragana, you are expected to learn katakana. Since you already know some Kanji from your Chinese experience, you may be tempted to skip the katakana step, however i would advise against that because katakana is still something you could probably learn in about a week, and is very widely used in the language from borrowed words to onomatopoeia, etc. You have picked a really fun but challenging language to begin learning!! Good luck!!

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