idk if people have suggested it but I've been told the genki textbooks are pretty good, it's the textbooks they used in intro to japanese I & II in my uni and my friend who used those books is pretty fluent now (though she's living in japan atm and ofc that helps too lol).
but srsly before anything else when you learn any language it's important to get the basics down... so like the alphabets and grammar.
also penpals are a good way to practise reading/writing, and idk if you can find one of these outside of a uni club or whatever but speaking to a actual native speaker is the best way to practise speaking/listening imo... the same friend who's now in japan had this thing through her japanese class where she spoke to a dude from japan like once a week to practise speaking. we have clubs on campus that are basically the same thing too, you go once a week and you can practise japanese with a native and they'll speak back to you in japanese. If you wanna go even further then maybe look for japan exchange programs.
if you don't wanna meet actual people then I suggest you watch some variety shows/talk shows instead of just dramas/anime/whatever bc the stuff ppl talk about on variety shows is a lot less scripted and closer to how ppl would talk irl imo.
but srsly before anything else when you learn any language it's important to get the basics down... so like the alphabets and grammar.
also penpals are a good way to practise reading/writing, and idk if you can find one of these outside of a uni club or whatever but speaking to a actual native speaker is the best way to practise speaking/listening imo... the same friend who's now in japan had this thing through her japanese class where she spoke to a dude from japan like once a week to practise speaking. we have clubs on campus that are basically the same thing too, you go once a week and you can practise japanese with a native and they'll speak back to you in japanese. If you wanna go even further then maybe look for japan exchange programs.
if you don't wanna meet actual people then I suggest you watch some variety shows/talk shows instead of just dramas/anime/whatever bc the stuff ppl talk about on variety shows is a lot less scripted and closer to how ppl would talk irl imo.
