Hiragana & Katakana. 

Straight of the bat, leARN KATAKANA. Do not avoid katakana after learning hiragana that shit will come back and haunt you ( i wish I was lying). 

Memrise - value 5/5 its free. You can download the courses when you’re at home so you don’t even need 4g to use the app when you’re out and about, context- 4/5, there is fantastic pre-made decks but sometimes you just can’t find what you’re looking for BUT you can make your own which is fantastic! note that memories are just flashcards so it’s great for vocabulary and kanji, whereas useless for grammar points. In terms of formatting 5/5 space repetition is gods gift, and the app is really easy to use. 

I mostly used Memrise because of the space repetition flashcard system, I use it on my phone and go through readily made decks on the bus, in bed, while I’m walking it’s so practical. 

If you’re like me and love games Japanese!! by Squarepost is the game for you. You basically match the romaji to the kana on a time limit. 

Textbooks 

Japanese from Zero https://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Zero-Methods-Integrated-Workbook/dp/0976998122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498387759&sr=8-1&keywords=japanese+from+zero 

Context 2/5 - I honestly didn’t even make it past chapter 4 before I realised how useless it is. This was the first textbook I got and boy was that a mistake! it’s terrible even for extreme beginners its 99% romaji and they teach maybe 4 kana per chapter. They have separate books for hiragana and katakana, my friend bought both and also never made it past chapter 5. I honestly believe that if you are serious about learning Japanese, you need a comprehensive textbook and this isn’t it. Value wise it’s about £20 ish 0/5  again it’s honestly a waste of money, I used it for about 3 weeks before I gave up as I was making no progress. I understand the theory that they had to shift from romaji to kana but its a very slow process which became very annoying. Formatting- 2/5 it has nice formatting easy to follow and use for self-study, it’s just the transition is so slow I would totally not recommend it.

Genki 1

The all famous Genki is a textbook I only recently started using (with a PDF file cause I can’t afford £40+ for a textbook lets be real IF YOU WANT THE PDF FILE MESSAGE ME I’LL SEND IT YOU, OR ILL POST A LINK WHEN I FIND IT I HAVE IT SAVED TO IBOOKS.So far I’m on chapter 5, and I understand the hype behind the series when I make some significant progress I shall upload a proper review. 

Japanese for busy people 2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Busy-People-Kana-Audio/dp/1568363850/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498387924&sr=1-1&keywords=japanese+for+busy+people

In October of 2016, I joined the Japanese course at my university, it was kinda expensive £190 but looking back it was worth it. The context I’d rate it 3/5 its a good textbook the grammar is easy to understand but each chapter is like 70% writing practice the same thing over and over again. The textbook is also very formal “business people” which is not the type of Japanese I want to learn. Our teacher made up for this by being super casual and showing us alternatives. The textbook also does not teach you any kanji at all, which is so annoying because kanji is so fun to learn. Value 3/5 it’s about £20 I believe so that’s not so bad, you get what you pay for I guess, lastly formatting 5/5 super easy to follow they had a dictionary in the back and the chapters were nicely organised. You could defiantly self-study with this serious, and its not difficult to tone the formality down. 

Remembering the Kanji 6th edition https://www.amazon.co.uk/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824835921/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498388023&sr=8-1&keywords=remembering+the+kanji