Hi, I am someone just beginning Japanese, or rather someone still experimenting with it a little bit with the option to give up without a huge time loss ;-)

I am starting with kana (currently in the middle of hiragana, I am taking it slow as I have lots on my plate this month and learning kana is a nice distraction), using mostly a memrise deck with kana and vocabulary to apply it on, and getting my resources, choosing a coursebook etc. Scritter appears to be a great tool despite the price that is not too student friendly.

So, is it worth it to try Scritter first, learn kanji and vocabulary separately and add grammar and context from a proper course later, when I'll have chosen it and have it shipped, or should I wait and learn vocabulary and kanji as it appears in the course (and as well begin to pay scritter a month or two later)?

Thanks in advance for replies.

I started using Skritter about a year and a half into my formal Japanese study at college as a supplement to the learning I was already doing. Since we were expected to be able to write kanji on tests, it made sense to have a proper tool for practicing kanji, so I went out and bought a Wacom tablet and started scribbling kanji. It helped with my test scores immensely and gave me an avenue for reviewing vocabulary without the need for flash cards or long lists.

So, in my opinion, Skritter isn't really a tool to be used as a stand-alone japanese learning experience. I now live in Japan and am using Skritter to prepare for the Japanese proficiency exam's final level. I've ONLY used Skritter to aid my learning in the last 3 years, never as a my exclusive learning method. In fact, I don't believe that you can achieve proficiency at all with just one or two learning methods.

So I would say practice your kana and some very basic kanji in some notebooks and, when you have a chance to start really learning Japanese, throw Skritter in to really accelerate your learning. Skritter's kanji breakdowns, easily accessible example sentences, customization, and learning system is top-notch and worth what I think is a pretty low price tag.

If you've mastered kana you are definitely ready to start studying basic words in the way they are presented, there's no reason to delay learning kanji in my opinion. You can ban any more difficult word writings while still being able to review their readings/definitions, and then later un-ban the writing once your ready to tackle it.

I also recommend studying kanji in the form of words and not individually on Skritter, though it's very important to learn the independent meanings of kanji to learn how words are formed combining meanings. The single character's meaning is displayed in the lower right hand corner when studying on the web during writing it, and accessible on the iOS app by tapping the (i) detailed info screen.

A good place to start is the Japanese 101 list, or the JLPT lists. www.skritter.com/vocab/

By the way, kana handwriting will be ready for the Android app soon!

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't think of Scritter as a standalone method. And I am not a naive person trying to learn first foreign language to believe one or two textbooks are gonna make me proficient by themselves, they are just the beginning. Actually, I've already learned 3 languages to high level and two of them totally on my own so I think I have the idea of what it will take, even though it will take much longer and more efforts.

I rather thought I might give myself a headstart for using the textbook so that I can be overwhelmed "only" by the grammar and such things during the first few lessons :-D. After all, I've heard the chinese learning Japenese have such a headstart (even though much much larger of course) as well.

Thanks for the lists ideas, I will definitely check them out. Is it as well beneficial to learn the radicals before learning the kanji or is not needed in the beginning?

I'm left with paper and pencil for kana practice as I am using an iPad but good for android users :-)

Yes, the price corresponds the quality of the tool but it doesn't change the fact that I am a student and I need to plan my expenses as efficiently as possible. If it wasn't so, I'd sign up and pay immediate even though I might have time even for one word a day ;-)

@Thawrea: There's an iOS app you can use on your iPad to Skritter! It's been out for a awhile now, the Android app is still in beta actually. If you download the iPad app you can test it out free for a week.

Learning radicals is a good help, although if you bypassed that and started learning high frequency characters you will pick them up anyway. I'd say you should study the meanings and being able to recognize radicals on their own, but don't worry about learning to write them on their own as a study tactic, and instead learn them coupled with writing actual characters.

Here's a basic example of how radicals are helpful. Three characters: 時、持、侍. They are all the same except the left radical, so learning the meanings of the radical is helpful to help understand why the character means what it does or to create a mnemonic. The first one 時, which is made up of the radical for day/sun on the left: 日, and temple on the right: 寺. The story could be that the temple had a sundial for everyone to check the time, which is why 時 together means "time". The next is 持, which means to "hold" or "possess". It's made up of the radical for hand: 手、 and again temple: 寺. The story could be that a long time ago no one had any possessions and the temple "owned" everything (bunch of Buddhists), which is hand and temple is "possess". The last one is 侍, which is made up of the radical for person: 人, and again temple (sometimes the left radical changes appearance slightly versus the standalone). The story could be a person leaning against a temple which could help you visualize a samurai, which is what 侍 means.

I would start learning as many verbs as you can if you want to get a head start ^^

I study Chinese, not Japanese, but I thought my experience might be relevant to your question.

I studied characters here on Skritter for a while and learned quite a few without studying much else in the way of Chinese grammar, sentences, or conversation. After a year or so I knew how to write "hot air balloon" but still couldn't ask "where is the men's room?" and I also found that my studying was quite inefficient because I wasn't connecting characters with anything else, so it took me many repetitions to learn them.

I took a long break from Skritter while I worked on some of those other areas and am now studying characters again, but I am making sure to balance character study with other kinds of study so I don't fall into the same trap.

Thanks for the advice. I will study some characters first to get the small headstart and not be overwhelmed when I dive into a textbook.

jww1066, I am not afraid of such situation. I have no time limit, no situation to look forward to where I would need to have conversational skills. Whether I reach the desired overall level in two years or ten years doesn't matter just as it doesn't matter whether I'll progress with all my skills at the same rate or I'll take some first and add others later.

What I meant is whether learning the characters first (such as characters from first half of a textbook I am going to use) will facilitate my learning when I start with the textbook with all the grammar and everything. Of course I do not consider learning just kanji without any real input in hopes it would be enough :-D