Additional reads:
So You Want To Learn Japanese...

Using this course
For these lessons your computer must be capable of displaying Japanese characters. If your computer doesn't have Japanese support, please follow our installation instructions.

Because the printed form, and even more so the digital form, of Japanese characters can differ quite a lot from the written form, we use a calligraphic font to display the characters in our vocabulary lists.

You can download the calligraphic Japanese font (2.27 MB) from our server. For installation instructions please visit our download page. Installation is not required, if the font is not installed a standard print form will be displayed.

Study method
Try to do a little every day rather than taking on big chunks at once, and try to memorize about 5 kanji per day. This will help keep the study load light. To memorize kanji I recommend writing the kanji repeatedly. This will also help you familiarize yourself with the stroke order. For writing kanji squared paper is recommended. It will help you separate kanji from radicals.

If you need help with the assignments you can post your questions on the forum.

Structure
This course is divided into several sections:

Lessons   Introduction Hiragana Katakana Transcription Pronunciation Useful phrases Kanji Alphabetizing in Japanese   Beginner level Lesson 1 :: Nouns Lesson 2 :: Verbs / the grammatical subject Lesson 3 :: Word order / the grammatical object Lesson 4 :: Polite forms / questions / negatives Lesson 5 :: The past tense / the gerund Lesson 6 :: Verbal adjectives / "na"-nominals Lesson 7 :: Katakana Lesson 8 :: Pronouns

Grammar   Conjugations Rentaikei Ren'youkei Izenkei Mizenkei Meireikei Group 4 verbs ending on -iru / eru   Constructions A wa B da A wa B ga C da Causative forms Clauses Comparative forms Conditional forms Counting & classifiers Desiderative forms Dubitative forms Gender forms Imperative forms Interrogative forms Negative forms Passive forms Polite forms Potential forms Prohibitive forms Requests Speech forms Subjunctive forms Tenses To be or not to be