Duolingo is bad. You should have a mix of resources that fit you best: Wanikani (absolutely essential), Bunpo, LingoDeer, Bunpro, and audio drills lessons, like Pimsleur.

Add a occasional speaking lesson with a teacher on iTalki.

I checked out Wanikani's free blog posts to learn kana, but they seemed pretty useless as an L2 English speaker. They might be useful for L1 English speakers, though.

The interesting thing about it is learning the kanji, which is essential for reading. It might be an extra step to learn a few new words in English, but it is not a complex task.

It is not complex per se, but it is unnecessarily confusing.

For instance, Japanese い (i) is similar in pronunciation to the letter 'i' in various Germanic languages (e.g. Dutch, German, Swedish). The romaji reflects this similarity.

Enter Wanikani's (Tofugu's) explanation:

> い is pronounced like the ee in "eel." To remember this kana, just think of a couple of eels hanging out.

Like I mentioned, this is probably useful for L1 English speakers, but it is not worth having to go from Dutch 'i' to English 'eel' in order to finally go to Japanese い (i).

When you use the app, not the blog, there are audios with the pronunciation, instead of these approximations. Wanikani is the app I refer to as useful, not Tofugu’s blog.

OK, I'll check out the app once I get to studying kanji (still working on kana at the moment). Thanks!

Talk with natives. I used HelloTalk back in the day and it was pretty good for Japanese.

If you can afford the cost and time investment, I greatly recommend studying at a Japanese language school in Japan. The experience is invaluable. I was able to get a one-year student visa, later extended for another year, as well as an amendment (there's a proper word for this but I can't recall) to the visa which allowed me to work part-time (above-the-table, that is) to help cover the costs. What's available to you will vary based on your citizenship (I'm American) but if you really want to learn this stuff seriously and have the opportunity available to you, I'd definitely recommend it.

Currently, though, I use DuoLinguo (yeah, not very comprehensive, but the gamificaiton works to induce me to use it every day, and a little study every day is better than none) and occasionally write up "Moments" (blog posts) on HelloTalk. As there's no IRL language schools that teach Japanese in the area I live currently, I hope to do online lessons some day, but those can be spendy and I'm not currently at a point in life with much disposable income.

I'm just starting out with Japanese, but a weird thing I have found is that private lessons with professional teachers (with 5-star reviews) on Italki seem to be about as expensive on an hourly basis as group-based lessons (at least in my country).

I was going to sign up for a class, but noticing this has made me reconsider, and now I am planning to just take private lessons for the same amount of money (or cheaper, as a class needs to move at the pace of its slowest student).

But if you want to be thrifty, I have heard of people who mostly self-study, and only consult with a private teacher to practice their speaking. I don't think Duolingo is a truly effective way to learn, but the last time I tried it was a decade ago.

The community on /r/LearnJapanese is massive and contains a lot of information.

Read and listen to a lot of native language. You will absorb the patterns and eventually produce them automatically. Much much easier than memorising lots of grammar.