The goal of this guide is to get as quickly to reading and listening to Japanese with a system set up to capture and learn new words as they are discovered naturally in context. The first step is to get some of the key software set up and learn the hiragana. From there the goal is to build up an initial set of grammar and vocabulary knowledge so that you can start reading and listening.

Getting Started

Initial Software Setup

How to type in Japanese (Set up Google IME)

Windows has one too, and you can Google it to find out how to install it but I found Google's to be much easier to use. The download is here, and the big blue download button is in fact the download button. That site is in Japanese, but don't worry because the installer is not. Using it is pretty easy once it's installed, there's an option to switch to the Google IME in the toolbar and once you have it selected then you can use ALT + ` to swap between hiragana input and English input. Typing a kana in hiragana input is just as simple as typing its romaji equivalent (ha -> は for example). It also does kanji suggestions, which can be tabbed through as they pop up. 'Enter' selects one once it's highlighted. Hitting 'enter' without selecting one lets you keep the hiragana you typed, or you can hit 'space' to pick the top suggestion.

Example: 'hanabi' shows はなび with 花火 as a choice in the popup menu. Tabbing to 花火 and hitting enter selects it while hitting enter without tabbing keeps はなび.

Really easy to do once you get used to it.

Install Anki

Download: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

An SRS flashcard program is central to this guide. SRS (spaced repetition system) is a flashcard model where the time until you next see a flashcard increases every time you mark it right and decreases every time you mark it wrong. I use it for all of the steps here which come down to rote memorization. It has lots of add-ons, that can tailor different aspects of the tool to be more to your liking but I would recommend going in without about as vanilla of a setup as it gets and looking for add-ons if something particularly bothers you.

Important Settings Changes:

In the preferences menu for a deck for Anki there are a few changes that you'll really want to make:

New Cards Tab:

• Steps: This controls how many times and at what time intervals Anki makes you get something right before it counts as 'learned'. It can be whatever you want (and here I think is a place where the default is fine), but I prefer a third step that is a long time away from the others so that I have to remember it for a while before it gets marked as 'learned'. I use 1 10 420 here, because 7 hours is long enough to usually require me to wait overnight but short enough that it will always be available the next morning at the very least.

• New Cards/Day: However high you're comfortable with. I'd say 20 is a reasonable start, but go higher if you feel like you have the time to do it.

• Graduating Interval/Easy Interval: I have these both set at 1 day. This just means that when I mark something as 'easy' when it first shows up in Anki it skips the three-step learning process. Useful if you already knew a word before seeing the card, or whatever.

Reviews Tab:

• Maximum reviews/day: This affects the number of total reviews you can do in a day. You want to do all reviews as they come due, so set this to some high number like 9999

• Maximum interval: Defeats the purpose of Anki if you don't let this grow arbitrarily large. Set it to 36500 days (10 years) or something.

Lapses Tab

• New Interval: You definitely don't want this to be the default 0%. Makes no sense at all to completely reset the clock if you momentarily forget it. I'd use something like 30%.

• Leech Action: Tag only here, otherwise it just takes cards you get wrong out of the deck after a while

Potentially useful plugins:

Load Balancer: I don't use this but it smooths the number of reviews you get a day a bit if you feel it's too spiky

Japanese Support: Gives a neat set of kanji stats, and some card types that are pretty decent. I only use it for the Kanji stats though.

Anki Simulator: Let's you simulate how many card reps you will have a day based on your personal success rate on the cards and your settings. Really useful for seeing how much work your chosen settings will be.

Mandatory First Step

There are three sets of characters in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Of these, I would only say that learning the hiragana is mandatory before starting everything else. For all three I would not recommend learning to handwrite them unless you really want to.

Learn the Hiragana

Definitely cannot skip this one, seriously don't bother doing anything else until you are good at reading this. Personally, I did not use an Anki deck for this. I used the Kanji Study app (also available on iOS) for learning the hiragana, but I don't think there's any benefit to using that app unless you want to learn to handwrite them. I would instead recommend using an Anki deck with the fancy setup from above and counting this step as done once you've finished learning all of the cards and passed them again the next day. I'd keep the deck in Anki past that point for a while for practice until you feel like you have them memorized, then delete it to keep things from getting cluttered.

Deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WUgGbwp9ciP_u4G-AEwEhVxifDz6qN0U/view?usp=sharing

Next Steps

Now you've finished learning the hiragana. The next step is

Katakana and Kanji

Learn the Katakana

Do alongside other things

You'll want to learn these eventually, but I would just slowly start learning them as you learn other things below.

Deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/779415544

Isolated Kanji Study

Optional (not recommended)

Optionally, you can study the kanji with English keywords using one of the mnemonic resources like Remembering the Kanji, Kanji Damage, or Kanji Koohi. Alternatively, you could just learn to recognize Kanji through vocabulary, which is what I would try first. If you're finding it hard to keep kanji separated in your head, then try to do one of these methods. I used the Kanji Damage Anki deck because it came with mnemonics of its own, but there are others that make you write the mnemonics yourself.

Deck: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1917095458 (There's also a deck that adds in the vocab words from these cards as cards of their own in such an order that you always have learned all of the kanji for the word before the word shows up. That might be pretty worthwhile for learning readings alongside recognition, but a lot of the words are fairly obscure and would make this step go a lot slower).

See the later section on Kanji. I think working a vocab-first approach to kanji learning into your daily vocab process is a better way to go about learning the Kanji than doing this at this point in the game.

Core Vocabulary and Grammar

Before you start to read and listen to native Japanese content, you'll want to establish a base of vocabulary and grammar knowledge so that you can comprehend at least some of what you are reading and listening to.

Core Vocabulary

Before beginning to consume Japanese content I'd recommend learning somewhere in the range of 300-500 of the most common words. There are several Anki decks that give different orderings of words depending on the sources used to measure the word frequency rates, but I think the one most applicable here is the Core VN deck which uses a set of Visual Novels to measure frequencies and is somewhat applicable to anime and manga as well. The deck below is a customized version of the Core VN 2.3k deck from AnkiWeb, which adds some features like random text orientation and font.

Deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nMj4Nb8c7iCi6XPM2hM48G7o6QMyIItp/view?usp=sharing

Original Anki deck without customizations: (Don't remember where I found this now exactly, probably googling the name would lead you to it)

Grammar

When you get close to the point where you want to start moving away from only learning vocabulary and would like to start reading, then you will need to start learning basic Japanese grammar. There are two free resources here that work well for this purpose. The more widely recommended of the two is Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar, and the other is Wasabi's Online Japanese Grammar Reference. For this step, once you get to ~200 words learned in the Core Vocabulary deck I would start to read sections from the Tae Kim grammar guide each day alongside Anki (until you get bored). If the writing style for the Tae Kim guide isn't to your liking, then try the Wasabi guide as an alternative. I think the ordering of topics in Tae Kim's guide is better suited to getting you up to speed quickly, but I like the explanations much more in Wasabi's guide so the way I use the two is that I would first read through some number of topics in Tae Kim before reading, then use Wasabi as my reference when I encounter a piece of grammar naturally and need a better explanation.

Note: The goal here is not to learn the grammar thoroughly. Obviously, binge reading a grammar guide over two weeks isn't going to lead to most things sticking in your mind fully because at this point you aren't even reading to get practice yet. Your goal here should be to get through the Basic and Essential grammar sections of Tae Kim's guide so that you get a sense of what the different moving parts in the language are. That in itself will make it so much easier to parse things in reading, and will aid greatly in your attempts to look grammar points back up later for a refresher. I wouldn't recommend using Anki for grammar because any given grammar point will show up enough in reading that it shouldn't be necessary, and you really need to see them used in a variety of scenarios vs a canned sentence on a flashcard. You should also read the Special Expressions section, but I wouldn't wait to start reading before you do so.

Additional Grammar References:

Imabi: Not good for learning, but it is useful as a reference.

A Dictionary of Basic(/Intermediate/Advanced) Japanese Grammar: Another useful reference, but it is not free. This thing is seriously more useful as a reference than all of the internet guides combined. The one shortcoming of this reference is that it doesn't really handle explanations of slang.

Channel your inner degenerate

And call it learning!

At this point, learning additional vocabulary and getting exposure to grammar naturally is done through reading, listening to, or watching Japanese content. New vocabulary is added as additional cards to a custom Anki deck, and grammar is learned through exposure and reference back to the grammar resources from before.

Software Setup

This setup step is definitely the longest, but it makes the process of going from seeing a word you don't recognize -> looking it up -> making an Anki card so much smoother that it's definitely worth it in the long run. The goal here is to make a sustainable vocab card creation engine so that you can keep adding new words/expressions that you see to cards along with their context.

Yomichan

https://animecards.site/yomichansetup/

Textractor

old.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/wiki/vnhooking

ShareX

I think this setup also does video capture/OCR but personally, I prefer Capture2Text and VNOCR for OCR and do not do video capture. I only use this for the audio.

https://animecards.site/setupsharex/

Capture2Text

This is my preferred OCR tool, but there are others if you don't like it.

http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/

Language Learning with Netflix

Only can be used with shows that have Japanese subtitles in them. Netflix original animes do, and most Japanese live action shows seem to as well.

languagelearningwithnetflix.com/

VNOCR (Optional)

By optional I mean that this does not work as well as Textractor at all, but if the hooking fails either because of some weird DRM or whatever else you can still get a pretty smooth experience with this after some tweaking. It would also let you approximate the Textractor experience for emulated VNs that will not work with Textractor.

https://old.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/wiki/vnhooking

The Process

A long list of software is nice and all, but here's how I actually use it: (Placeholder for now, if you get here and it's still a placeholder then bug me)

Recommended Early Content

Manga

The easiest entry point for reading. They contain primarily dialogue-based text and the text comes with visual context.

Shinmai Shimai no Futari Gohan (新米姉妹のふたりごはん)

A slice-of-life manga about two new sisters bonding over the younger sister's love of cooking. There isn't much in the way of a plot, so it isn't exactly necessary that you are able to read every line.

Flying Witch (ふらいんぐういっち)

Like the above, it's slice-of-life but with touches of a magical theme/setting.

Yotsuba&! (よつばと！)

This is the "classic" recommendation for a first read, but it has stretches of kid-speak that are a bit hard to parse. I think the other two are easier to read at the start. On the other hand, it's so popular with language learners that there are a lot of resources built around it. Example: I've seen vocab decks broken up by volume so that you could in theory review a volume's vocab using the deck before reading it to help your comprehension.

Podcasts

Hard to use very early on because without visual context it can sound like noise.

Nihongo con Teppei

Specifically the beginner's podcast. These are short 5 minute episodes with a very limited scope that are pretty easy to follow even early on.

Learning Japanese with Smalltalk

A lot harder than the other two here, but also better practice overall since it's two native speakers making small talk.

Konnichiwa Podcast

This one could be done from day one because it's totally possible to follow the podcast even if you don't understand any Japanese. One of the hosts speaks in English, one in Japanese, and one swaps back and forth a lot. Not the most interesting podcast in the world though.

TV/Anime

Because of how good Language Learning with Netflix is, I would stick to shows on Netflix with Japanese subtitles. As far I've seen, all of the Netflix Original anime have Japanese subtitles available, and not much else. Here are some examples:

Teasing Master Takagi-san (からかい上手の高木さん)

Slice of life comedy, so it is relatively easy to follow. And it has Japanese subtitles.

Samurai Gourmet

It's not an anime, but it's a slice-of-life show about a retiree rediscovering his love of eating and drinking. Has Japanese subtitles available.

Terrace House

I guess whether you watch this depends on whether you can stomach a reality TV show. It's going to be more realistic listening practice than a drama or anime because it's reality TV though. Has Japanese subtitles.

Visual Novels

Harder to read/listen to than TV/Manga, but also useful in that there is plenty of visual and audio context to the text.

Useful Google search term for playing these: 攻略 (こうりゃく) (abbreviation for 'strategy guide')

Narcissu

Free on Steam, and the Steam version comes with both English and Japanese language options. I had a really hard time getting Textractor to work on this though.

Watashi no Real wa Juujitsu Shisugiteiru (私のリアルは充実しすぎている)

Free to download, and centers around school slice-of-life so the vocabulary isn't too terrible.

Other recommendations from Reddit: Here

Miscellaneous titles that are bilingual in the English release: Riddle Joker, Aokana

Other

NHK Easy News

A Japanese news website meant for Japanese school kids. The articles are short, relatively easy to read, come in podcast form, and have toggleable furigana all of which are really nice for using it to read early on. Another thing that I like is that some of the 'trickier' vocabulary words in the articles have mouseover definitions in Japanese which can sometimes get you moving along with the reading without even needing to look something up in a J-E dictionary. Link

Other Considerations

"Learning the Kanji"

At this point, knowing hundreds to a thousand-ish vocab might be a good spot to actually learn the Kanji, but I still don't think that just learning to recognize them via English keywords is at all helpful for reading. This is where a deck like the Kanji Damage + vocab deck or a similar Kanji learning system that incorporates reading/vocab would be good to work in. WaniKani (paid subscription) and the Kodansha Kanji Learners Course (book + graded readers) are the most popular options for this and I think that either would be much better than something along the lines of Remembering the Kanji. Mostly because learning kanji with their reading/vocab for more readings will do a lot more to help your reading.

Appendix

Anki

Anki has a lot of settings to mess with, and getting the most out of it as a tool requires some basic understanding of what it is trying to do in order to optimize the process for yourself. The theory behind Anki is that each time you recall something after some interval it will take a longer amount of time after that to forget it again. So, you continually recall items after longer and longer intervals to build up your long term memory.

So, optimizing Anki requires trying to target the longest intervals you can without retention dropping too much (creating more times that you need to learn something). It should be said however that you don't want to aim for 100% retention either. The ideal is to aim for something in the range of 80-90% retention on mature cards as this strikes a good balance between high retention and long intervals. The biggest way you might be able to effect retention is by changing the starting ease or interval modifiers in the deck settings. Anki calculates the next interval as Current Interval x Ease x Interval Modifier so if you have a card with an interval of 10 days, an ease of 250% and an interval modifier of 100% then the next interval is 10 x 250% x 100% = 25 days. If you feel that you need to make sweeping adjustments to the interval lengths I would do so on interval modifier instead of ease, as letting ease change per card is a good way to let Anki calibrate the difficulty of each card.

Speaking of ease, by default Anki lowers the ease of a card each time you hit 'Again' or 'Hard' but this tends to lead to cards just decreasing in ease over time (which is probably the opposite of what you want since it just means that the intervals get shorter than they would have been). There are lots of plugins that try to combat this tendency for the ease to drop over time, but I think the most natural of these is Straight Reward which lets ease climb again toward your set maximum if you get a streak of correct answers on a card.