Free Japanese learning resources

Japanese takes longer than most languages for English speakers, and nearly all of the extra time is the writing system. The fastest route is unromantic: learn hiragana and katakana in the first week or two — they are genuinely learnable that fast — then start kanji immediately and never stop. Romaji feels helpful early and becomes a handicap within a month.

Grammar is the pleasant surprise. There are no cases to memorise, no gender and no plural agreement; the difficulty is word order and particles, which come from exposure rather than tables. Pair a structured course with a dictionary that handles conjugated forms, because looking up an inflected verb is otherwise painful.

Expect a long stretch where you can read more than you can hear. Graded readers are worth more than native material for most of the first year — a novel you cannot parse teaches far less than a simple text you fully understand. Add listening and native media once basic sentences are comfortable.

A realistic first year: kana in the first fortnight, then a course alongside steady kanji work — a small daily number sustained for months beats intensive bursts, because kanji retention depends on repeated spaced exposure rather than intensity. Expect roughly a year before ordinary native text stops being a decoding exercise.

If your goal is speaking, note that textbook Japanese and casual spoken Japanese differ noticeably in verb endings and dropped particles, so add unscripted listening once the basics are solid. If your goal is reading, graded readers and manga with furigana bridge the gap far better than jumping to novels.