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[64bitmodels]

Don't be afraid to read stuff like Doraemon

I LOVE doraemon, i used to watch subbed and dubbed versions of it all the time

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

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[Zambatoh]

Where do I start?

I'm still learning myself, but In my experience the best way to start, is to learn the two Kanas first. Specifically Hiragana and Katakana.
Learning these two alphabets can be done in any number of ways including using Duolingo's study guide, various mobile games/apps. There's also couple of PC games called "Learn Japanese to Survive - Hiragana" and it's Katakana and Kanji equivalents.
After this though, you might attempt to learn kanji, but you're also gonna want to supplement this with grammar and vocab words. Learn how to put sentences together. Also some words can mean different things depending on how they're spelled. For example: Kami means paper when written one way and when written another way, God.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

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[SlimeGooGoo]

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[Zambatoh]

Also, is there an official™ list tools that you guys use to translate or identify symbols? (For any platform e.g. Windows, Linux, Android)

I don't know about "official" tools, but there are plenty of Machine Translation apps out there, including Google translate.
Just don't try to translate entire sentences with them.

 

[Porcile]

Also, is there an official™ list tools that you guys use to translate or identify symbols? (For any platform e.g. Windows, Linux, Android)

https://jisho.org/ is good enough.

 

[jshackles]

I don't think I've posted in here yet, but I've been (seriously) learning Japanese since February. I say "seriously", because I've picked up a bit of a hodgepodge of the language through various means off and on over the last 25 years.

I started out with a bit of a refresher course in the kanas, until I could accurately identify all hiragana and katakana and their diacritics. For those I used Tofugu's guides (which were super duper helpful at getting my old ass to remember stuff) and the open source Fun with Kanji app.

Meanwhile, I did a couple of levels of Duolingo, which was fantastic at first, but kinda fell off the cliff of practicality near the middle of section two. It was still worth investing time into though, because it was a good way to learn a few basic phrases and to hear them out loud.

I've moved on now to studying in four different approaches:

• Listening / Speaking: Pimsleur. I find this to be the ideal way to learn new phrases, although it's totally focused on listening and speaking - so there is no writing. This has the added benefit (for me) of being able to learn / practice while I'm hiking in the woods and nowhere near a computer.
• Grammar: I picked up a few Genki and other entry-level textbooks, and have been spending time studying them and going through the workbooks.
• Writing / Kanji: I've been using the Fun with Kanji app, Genki's "look and learn" textbook, and Tofugu's Wanikani website.
• Immersion: I've been listening to nothing but Japanese language music since February. If a movie, TV show, or video game has a Japanese language option, I've activated it. I've watched a lot of Youtube videos about places to visit in Japan, in Japanese.

Everything together is, I think, giving me a pretty good crash course in the language. I wish I would have had resources like these twenty or more years ago, as I'd probably be fully fluent by now. Also, I wish I were twenty years younger, because I used to be able to digest this kind of information a lot more readily. Between the active lessons (listening, grammar study, and learning vocab / kanji), I'd say I've been putting in between 30-60 minutes a day. Throwing the immersion on, it's a lot higher than that (though that's mostly aided by listening to jpop at work).

I'm definitely still a beginner, but I feel like I'm making progress and hope to keep going with it. My wife and I are planning a nebulous trip to Japan "at some point when we can afford it" - so hopefully by the time that happens, I'll be able to get along fine.

 

[NahaNago]

I'm back on the language learning train again. Although I don't really feel like I've progressed that much since earlier this year. I plan to immerse myself a lot more though. I listen to a lot of Japanese learning podcasts and study for about 30 minutes a day with notecards. I'll start the writing studies next week. Maybe I'll feel like I've made progress if I'm reading everything in hiragana and katakana.

It is so annoying being familiar with a word that you hear in Japanese interview but forgetting what it means. At least I'm getting a better gist of the conversation these days.