Japanese is a really nice language. The grammar for plain speech is so consistent that I'm always tempted to try to write it down in BNF. The other nice thing about it is that it is economical. A noun by itself is a grammatically correct sentence. Copula and verbs are optional. Any sentence ending in a verb (or copula, as long as you change "da" to "na") can be used to modify a noun. It makes it so simple to say complex things. Finally, things that you would use tone of voice for in English can be expressed with particles at the end of the sentence. This allows you to be really expressive in Japanese.

If anyone is interested in learning Japanese, I have some advice:

- Do not learn polite forms until you master plain forms. Japanese is built on plain forms and polite forms are an extension of that. If you learn polite forms first, you are going to get wildly confused because everything you assume about the grammar will be wrong. People think they must learn polite forms in order to get along. Just do what all my Japanese high school students did: add "desu" to the end of all your sentences ;-). It is totally wrong and you will sound like an uneducated, hillbilly moron, but people will appreciate your effort ;-)

- Read http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar I don't think there is a better grammar guide out there. Memorize all the example sentences (if you use flash cards or Anki, then drill from English to Japanese only).

- Learn hiragana and kanji (hiragana first). Pick up katakana over time (it's not really very important). Hiragana and katakana are phonetic alphabets. Once you know hiragana you can read children's books with "furigana" (the pronunciation of kanji is written beside the kanji in hiragana). Kanji are the chinese characters.

- Do not avoid learning kanji. One thing that I discovered as I was learning Japanese is that I could learn vocabulary along with the kanji faster than I could learn the vocabulary alone. Kanji is a fantastic mnemonic and is constructed in a comprehensible way. "Remembering the kanji" by James Heisig is a great technique for learning kanji. I don't like his choice of keywords, though (some are arguably just wrong). I recommend reading the first section of the book and then deriving your own keywords. As it turns out, the publisher of the book offers the first section as a free PDF download: http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2012/12/RK-1-6th-edition...

- Read manga as a way to learn conversational Japanese. Probably this is the best thing I ever did. Yes there are characters with weird expressions (datte ba yo!) or incredibly impolite expressions (ending every sentence with yagaru), but I really doubt you will fail to pick those up ;-) Obviously don't use them in real conversations if you don't want to shock people. Generally speaking the expressions -- and especially the contractions -- are the way normal people speak in Japan. You won't get this in a text book.

- Don't read textbooks (except for Tae Kim's, linked above).

- For introductory vocabulary, the JLPT vocabulary lists up to and including N3 are excellent. Don't bother past there because it is loaded down with vocabulary that you are unlikely to use, at the expense of vocabulary that you will definitely need in every day conversations. After you memorize N3 vocabulary, just get all your vocabulary from normal reading. By all means, if you just enjoy memorizing vocabulary lists, feel free to do N2 and N1 vocabulary lists -- it won't hurt you. I just think that it is an inefficient use of time.

Hope that helps anyone who is getting started ;-)