Tae Kim's "Learn Japanese From Scratch" videos

Have you ever heard about this guy's Japanese lessons before?
I don't know how well-known they are, but in my opinion they are a fantastic resource when it comes to learning Japanese and also actually developing a good feel for that language.
I really like how Tae Kim truly starts from the basics and covers the core fundamentals, while also giving a lot of example phrases at the same time.
You almost never really feel confused, because each of his videos flow incredibly smoothly from one topic to the next, and he has a very professional tone in general - if you understand one video, then you will be able to follow the next one, and so on.
He also has a site where he explains everything in text, but I tend to prefer following his videos instead.
He starts off with this video:

"How to learn Japanese"

If you have any interest in Japanese at all, then this guy's videos are must-sees. :D
Just keep in mind that he doesn't have videos for all topics, but his grammar page is very extensive:

"Japanese Grammar Guide"

The grammar guide is good. I used it a lot in my first few years of college.

I actually referenced it today at work (I'm a translator). Needed to confirm that the particles I was using were correct for the situation. :D

Yeah it's good stuff! Good for reference but won't teach you the language on its own.

I didn't know there were videos though. I'll have to check them out

Tae Kim's guide is meant to be a comprehensible grammar guide that gives you the necessary tools to understand how Japanese sentences are composed.
Once you know that, you pretty much just need to learn vocabulary and get used to speaking the language and listening to it. :)
But there won't be any real grammatical barrier anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Peter1986

Tae Kim's guide is meant to be a comprehensible grammar guide that gives you the necessary tools to understand how Japanese sentences are composed.
Once you know that, you pretty much just need to learn vocabulary and get used to speaking the language and listening to it. :)
But there won't be any real grammatical barrier anymore.

---

Yeah, I finally got around to seeing at least the first video. He makes a good point of that as well; you can't learn Japanese by studying, you have to go out and use it!

One thing I would disagree with him on is him saying that step 1 of learning Japanese is learning hiragana. I can see where he is coming from, but no one ever learned their native language by learning how to read and write first. I think you should start off with speaking and listening. Reading and writing should be second, or done along with learning to speak and understand those words at the same time at the very most. There is no reason to learn to read or write a word that you cannot say or understand! Which brings me to another point that I would disagree with him: I think that you should learn katakana before hiragana. I know that hiragana is more common, but with katakana, a great deal of them are loanwords, many of them borrowed from English. So these are words that you already know, so why not start with that system first? You will be able to see and read katakana and know their meaning in many cases.

Just my two cents. I know everyone learns languages differently though, so whatever works for you!