@robflop I wouldn't mind some advice. I've been slacking the past few months, but I can still (slowly) spell out hiragana, so I've not really forgotten that, which is good!

I'd been using this site as a starting point:
https://www.tofugu.com/learn-japanese/

and via that site went on to memorize the characters here:
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/

and then tested myself via:
https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com

I suspect I probably should go learn Katakana next, via that same site.

Keep in mind that I cannot hear, so ponouncation is lost on me. I really need to know what (Latin) letters those kana are associated with so I can spell them with my inner voice.

That is another thing Duolingo really was bad at. It allows you to hear the pronouncation, but doesn't show the Latin letters for it so I can't memorize those Kanji because I have no point of reference to remember them by.

@trinsec@qoto.org Tofugu is a very good resource to use already, so I recommend continuing to use that. Was about to suggest you use Tofugu's sheets for learning hiragana and katakana, actually.

For a quiz, I can recommend https://kana.pro.

Once you've memorized hiragana and katakana (which is to say you should know hiragana very well and katakana decently well - even if you don't recognize some you will pick it up with time), I recommend starting a grammar textbook (+ workbook if you want to do handwriting). I suggest the Genki series for this. When I bought mine, it was on its Second Edition, but they have since released a Third edition, so you might want to look into how those compare. Can't make comments on the 3rd edition of course, but can recommend the 2nd Edition.

If you want to (and I recommend you do) use a SRS system for grammar points, then I'd point you towards the service I use, which is https://bunpro.jp. It has built-in support for various textbooks (and online guides) so you can jump right into setting up revisions for exactly the grammar points the book is teaching you. There's a free trial of 30 days as well, and the cost after that is pretty low, so I'd definitely check it out.

Then, once you've gotten past the first 2-3 Chapters of the first Genki book, they will start introducing Kanji. This is where you'll definitely need to have your hiragana down (having incomplete katakana knowledge will not hurt you much here, but incomplete hiragana knowledge definitely will). Once the Genki series starts introducing Kanji, I very highly recommend starting to use the Kanji / Vocab SRS that I am using, which is https://www.wanikani.com.

The order in which WaniKani and Genki teach you words or kanji are largely different, so that will be weird, but I believe WaniKani's way of teaching them to be better, so imo don't miss out on that. Similarly to Bunpro, Wanikani's first 3 levels (of 60) are completely free to do, and according to what they say "includes a whole school year's worth of kanji" as well as "55% of the Kanji needed for N5". That will allow you to know if you like the approach WaniKani takes or not - a friend of mine for example prefers the "Remembering the Kanji" book approach, so it's not for everyone. Compared to Bunpro, WaniKani is a lot more expensive, but it's still worth it in my opinion. I personally opted for a lifetime plan during their last sale, which I can recommend once you've steeled your resolve and are really willing to stick with learning JP for the coming years.

If you've decided to use WaniKani, then I recommend using https://kaniwani.com alongside it. It's a free website that hooks into your WaniKani account and acts as a sort of reverse-WaniKani.

From then on, I think it's really just a matter of keeping at it every day (if your schedule allows it) and gathering that knowledge little by little.

And oh right, the online japanese dictionary I use is https://jisho.org - highly recommended too.

@trinsec@qoto.org Oh and of course, maybe the most important part in actually making it all stick for a long time, is hands-on practice.

I do this here on Misskey, by writing posts in japanese, reading other's japanese posts, and talking to them in japanese. You could try setting up a secondary account on a japanese fediverse instance (like Misskey.io) if you want to do this but not on your main.

Imo, only actually using the language in a real-world environment will make the language stick, so this is probably the most important part of it all. Even if you can't say much, or can't read much, just proactively go at it. Most people are nice and some will even help by offering you corrections (you can check the pins in my profile for when I started practicing on Misskey myself).

Just noticed I forgot one imo very essential thing for this while practicing online deal: The browser extension Yomichan, available for both Firefox and Chromium (maybe others, but I know about those two). It's an extensible browser dictionary that allows you to hover over japanese text in your browser and instantly see dictionary entries for that word. Extensible in the sense that you can (and have to) import dictionaries on your own - there's several free sample ones given, but you could theoretically import commerical ones from electronic dictionaries as well, I believe.

@robflop That's a fair amount of bookmarks I'm going to make. ;)

Checked out this kana.pro briefly, thought at first 'meh' until I got to stage 4, that's actually challenging. I also noticed that here and there there seems to be slight spelling differences, so I'll have to pay attention to that as well. Guess it's time to set up my note system to note all the little details.

I'll have to brush up my Hiragana a bit (it's just the small details I make mistakes at, easily remedied) and will indeed continue with Katakana. Glad to read that the site I'm using is a good resource to start with.

Thanks for the suggestions, I've bookmarked a bunch. Maybe I can actually chat with my RL Japanese friends in their own language someday. :D

@trinsec@qoto.org The spelling differences you're seeing might be due to the different romanizations. Because of this, I personally recommend decoupling yourself from romaji as soon as you can and only "think in japanese" when it comes to writing, if that makes sense. May be more difficult in your case as you stated before though, so I don't know how this would be different for you.

Here's a relevant article about it from tofugu: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/romaji/

And also, I'm glad to help. I know I wrote up a storm and it may seem overwhelming, but I feel like once you gradually get into the workflow of using these resources it works really well. If you have any further questions I'm always open for trying to help ​​

@robflop I see. I don't really do Romaji, I do use my inner voice. I mean, if I see the kana for 'na', I need to know how to 'pronounce' it for myself with my inner voice. That's where the so-called Romaji part comes in since I can't hear the pronouncation and memorize that instead. Plus the testing sites ask me to type the Latin letters for those kana, so I need to be able to type that as well.

Oh, and I'll pronounce those Romaji the Dutch way, too... ;) I have no fucking clue how English is spoken! English with my inner voice will sound all butchered up. :D

@robflop Oh, I meant to ask what an SRS system is? You mentioned it a few times and I can't figure out what SRS stands for.

@trinsec@qoto.org It stands for "Spaced Repetition System". Basically, after you learn something (e.g. one word), the system will initially quiz you about it. After that, it will quiz you again about it after a certain amount of time. The amount of time between each time it quizzes you grows each time you get it correct - and goes back to the initial stage if you get it wrong. It's laid out to ask you about the word right as you are about to forget it, so that it's refreshed in your memory.

Here's a 9min video that goes into a bit more detail on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVEcTd6LEwo

(Highly recommended channel from me)

@trinsec@qoto.org Oh and yeah, of course you can go give Anki a shot as well, I personally just prefer WaniKani / Bunpro.

@trinsec@qoto.org Aaaand a textual explanation from Tofugu here: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/spaced-repetition/

Shortly forgot that a video would be inconvenient 😅

@robflop Hehe, I'll check those later. But Spaced Repetition System sounds familiar, I believe my note systems got plugins for that. I guess I might actually investigate those then, thanks!

@trinsec@qoto.org No problem at all!