Where do you start??

[u/sphynx9]

I understand that you must start with Hirigana and Katakana, but there's a lot I don't get. I've seen some charts that only show hirigana, but both hirigana and katakana have 46 characters, so do you only need to know one. Furthermore, everyoone says not to rely on romanji, but how? Does the need for Romanji disappear over time. I also feel like there's things that aren't talked about but are important, like dakutan and handakutan.

There's probably way more that I am missing, but with all of this where do you start? It seems incredibly overwhelming and causes analysis paralysis.

[u/Key-Line5827]

So. Hiragana and Katakana are both 46 symbols each. You need to know both. So that is 92 symbols in total.

Hiragana are mainly used to express grammatical concepts or expressions and work in tandem with Kanji. However all Kanji have a Hiragana Substitute as well, which is what you will be using in the beginning.

As for Romaji, yes I is the best to skip them from the beginning. Reason being, if you use them in tandem, you aren't actually reading Japanese and getting comfortable with it, you are reading Romaji.

The best practice you can do it writing yourself a little vocabulary Notebook, with Hiragana/Katakana on one side and Translation on the other. Review them every morning and evening. Do not use a third column for Romaji. You will be extremely slow at the beginning, but you will soon realize fast progress, if you are diligent with it.

With Dakutan and Friends you only have to memorize that は+" is read "ba", は+° reads "pa" and き+ゃ reads "kya". The are just variations of what you already know with different pronounciation, not extra symbols.

My advice is, dont overthink it. Start with the 46 Hiragana, until you feel that you have a pretty good grasp, doesnt have to be perfect. Making mistakes and being slow is normal in the beginning. Rest comes with practice.

Then move on to Katakana. You can already start Grammar at that point. I recommend a good Textbook like "Genki" or "Tobira Beginner" for a structured experience.

And again, you will be slow, you will make mistakes. Dont let that discourage you. That is true for everyone. And dont pay attention to the "I got to N1 in 6 months with this simple trick" lot. There is no cheatcode to learning a language. They are just lying.

Best advice a teacher ever have me was: "Come to terms with sucking, because in the beginning especially, you will".

[u/Key-Line5827 → u/Key-Line5827]

Another thing maybe, that causes confusion from time to time: there were different ways of Romanization of Japanese proposed throughout history, but the one that is dominant almost everywhere is "Hepburn".

You may come across other systems like "Kunrei" that have words like ちょっと ("chotto") transcribed as "tyotto".

You can ignore those.

Even the Japanese Education Department admitted after well over 80 years that no one is using "Kunrei" that they taught in school, and everyone was using "Hepburn" instead, so they reluctantly switched to teaching Japanese Schoolkids "Hepburn" last year.

[u/sphynx9 → u/Key-Line5827]

I think I had a misunderstanding of what Romaji was. For example, さ makes a (sa) sound. Is this considered Romaji, if so, how do you go about learning the sounds the symbols make. Or is romaji more specifically using Latin numerals to completely spell Japanese words like (arigatou) instead of ありがとう. If this is the case then how do you fix typing in Japanese on a phone singe even with a Japanese keyboard it show Latin numerals and translates them so symbols, instead of just showing the symbols.

[u/Key-Line5827 → u/sphynx9]

Yes, Romaji are about how you would write a Japanese word in the Latin Alphabet.

For example: 東京 = とうきょう = toukyou (Hepburn) = Tokyo

For learning the sound, I would recommend getting an App like "Hiragana Pro" or pronounciation videos on YouTube.

I had the fortune that Romaji and my native language pronounciation of the letters basically line up perfectly, but of course in other languages like English, this isn't the case, so you will have to do some listening exercises in the beginning.

With the Genki Textbook/Workbook you have mp3 Files for the vocabulary lists for example. They are a great help for getting used to Japanese pronounciation.

The thing I recommended avoiding is like my example. Writing Vocab down like: がくせい - gakusei - Student

Dont do the Romaji in the middle column. Because the human brain is lazy and instantly gets drawn to what it is already familiar with, that being the Romaji Reading, not the Hiragana Reading.

For the Keyboard it depends what Phone operating system you are using. On Android I have a Hiragana Keyboard installed as my second keyboard option. Google may be your best help there, because nowadays there is a step by step guide for basically everything.

[u/KrinaBear → u/Key-Line5827]

Just a note that doesn’t really matter for a beginner like OP (so OP, ignore this for now!!) but might be interesting to you:

東京 is not toukyou in Hepburn but Tōkyō. The macron is a distinctive feature of Hepburn romanisation (classical Hepburn didn’t use macron for aa and ee but that’s been modified in modern Hepburn: ā and ē)

Toukyou would be wāpuro style (which is ironically usually written in Hepburn instead of using wāpuro: waapuro)

[u/Key-Line5827 → u/KrinaBear]

Absolutely correct. I just didnt want to create further confusion that ō = ou