If you're a rabid anime lover like me, you can't help but develop some sort of yearning to learn Japanese, whether it be just a few words or a mastery of the entire language. For me, it's the latter LOL, so I've been taking college courses in Japanese and teaching myself at home using some helpful books I bought. I also spent a month studying Intermediate Japanese language at Kyoto Sangyo University in Kyoto, which helped a whole lot, but a I really needed to spend at least a few years there in order to become fluent...but I've found that being passionate about it really helps me learn it a lot better and faster! ^_^ But even so, Japanese is completely different from English in many ways, so it can be difficult to begin learning it from scratch. So I've put together this helpful guide for those of you who are interested in learning helpful words, common phrases, some writing, and basic fundamentals of the Japanese language. Don't expect to be fluent after reading this guide though, LOL. I've only covered the most basic elements of the language on a beginner's level ^^,,, But if you really are interested in learning Japanese, I hope this guide of mine will give you a good start!
Part 1: Japanese vs English - introduction to the Japanese language and how it differs from English
Part 2: The Japanese Writing System - basic information and visual explainations of the three Japanese writing systems; hiragana, katakana, and kanji
Part 3: Vocabulary and Common Phrases - extensive lists of Japanese nouns(animals, food, people, etc) and pronouns, as well as interrogatives and many common phrases
Part 4: Verbs and Adjectives - describes how Japanese verbs and adjectives are classified and conjugated. Also lists many common verbs and adjectives
Part 5: Honorifics and Politeness Levels - explains honorifics and the varying Japanese speech levels
Part 6: Particles and Basic Grammar - talks about the most common Japanese particles and how to use them to make simple sentences.
Part 7: Other Important Aspects of Japanese - other parts of the Japanese language that I feel are important but don't really fit into the other categories
The following is a list of the books I used to help me make this guide. All of them are highly recommended if you're serious about learning Japanese! ^_^
Akiyama, Nobuo and Carol Akiyama. Japanese Vocabulary. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series Inc., 1991.
Kamiya, Taeko. The Handbook of Japanese Verbs. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha America Inc., 2001.
Lampkin, L. Rita. Japanese Verbs and Essentials of Grammar. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., 2004.
Sakade, Florence. A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese. Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing, 2003.
The Association for Japanese-Language Teaching(AJALT). Japanese for Busy People 1. New York, NY: Kodansha America Inc., 1994.