Cool! I'm traveling to Japan for the first time later this year. When I started making a few flash cards here and there for common phrases, I realized that learning a new language might be a good use of spare brain cycles, and Japanese seemed pretty cool, so I kind of fell into it.
From a beginner's perspective, this seems like a good overview of the "mechanics" - good to read at the beginning in order to get a basic understanding of the concepts, and a good reference, but not a good way to actually start learning the language.
My local library has the full beginner/intermediate/advanced set of Pimsleur Japanese, which has been great to use during my commute - I say "use" rather than "listen to" because the point of the Pimsleur method is that it's interactive - you're supposed to respond to the prompts out loud so you get used to physically forming the words and so you can hear yourself in comparison to the reference speaker. The Human Japanese "app textbook" is pretty good as well. Anki is a good flashcard app but making the cards yourself is painful and time consuming, I need to go find a few more premade decks.
From a beginner's perspective, this seems like a good overview of the "mechanics" - good to read at the beginning in order to get a basic understanding of the concepts, and a good reference, but not a good way to actually start learning the language.
My local library has the full beginner/intermediate/advanced set of Pimsleur Japanese, which has been great to use during my commute - I say "use" rather than "listen to" because the point of the Pimsleur method is that it's interactive - you're supposed to respond to the prompts out loud so you get used to physically forming the words and so you can hear yourself in comparison to the reference speaker. The Human Japanese "app textbook" is pretty good as well. Anki is a good flashcard app but making the cards yourself is painful and time consuming, I need to go find a few more premade decks.