This page will help you find what you’ll need to get started using this site.
For Complete Beginners
Whether you know absolutely no Japanese or just a little, start by looking at the Beginning Lessons, which start with the basics of pronunciation and writing and move on to simple grammar, sentence patterns, vocabulary, and expressions.
In particular, you should definitely read Introduction to the Japanese Language and the other introductory lessons on pronunciation and sentence structure.
Although the focus of these lessons is on basic spoken Japanese, the Japanese writing system is covered as well. For extra help learning Hiragana and Katakana, the Japanese quasi-phonetic scripts, you’ll also find kana charts, stroke order guides, and flashcards on this resource page.
For Continuing Beginners
The lessons are structured in such a way that it’s easy to jump in at any point. Prerequisite topics are listed at the beginning of each page, and suggested follow-up lessons are listed at the bottom. Go to the Lessons top page and start exploring.
I’m also working on creating various reference materials, like vocab lists and conjugation charts. There will also be some introductory lessons on Kanji (Chinese characters) in the near future.
For Advanced Beginners and Up
If you’re solid on basic formal and informal speech and most of the verb conjugations, you’re at least an advanced beginner in my book. It will be a while before I have much content at your level, but you should definitely look at the reference and links sections, where you’ll discover a lot of great information and external resources.