If you are not sure yet if the language is for you, I would try to get a feel for it with Duolingo. It seems to be the best free app.
If you are confident that you want to learn the language, and you have some money to spend, then I have some more recommendations:
Pimsleur (The most expensive course I have tried (around $500 for the whole course, or as subscription for ~$23 per month).
I quite like this course because you see how you get better every day. Also, over time, the lessons speed up, so you end up learning to speak at a normal conversational speed.
full course consists of five levels of 30 lessons each
30 minute audio-lessons
You repeat the lessons until you can do at least 80% correctly, then move on to the next lesson
in the lesson, an English narrator and multiple native speakers explain the language to you. There are always pauses for you to repeat the sentences. Later on, the lessons start to pick up speed and will increasingly resemble actual conversations.
The goal is to learn speaking intuitively without explicitly learning vocabulary, or grammar rules
focus on speaking the language, correct pronunciation
some reading lessons, but the focus is definitely on learning how to speak
LingoDeer ($160 for the lifetime license, or as a subscription for $15 per month)
I found this course to be very well-structured.
good for Asian languages in general
actual audio recordings for all vocabulary and sentences (in contrast: Duolingo still uses computer-generated speech for the Japanese course)
grammar lessons with minigames
vocabulary is always learned as part of sentences, and you can always click on the sentences to hear how they are pronounced
there is a practice corner where you can review what you previously learned
listening comprehension lessons are integrated in the course
Book: Remembering the Kanji (James W. Heisig)
I use this book to learn the Kanji because I had trouble remembering them just by using learning apps. As a free alternative, you may also want to take a look at KanjiDamage.
You learn the “components” from with the Kanji are built
book provides a lot of guidance on how to create good memotics
Kanji are ordered, so you always know all the bits and pieces of a Kanji, before you learn the Kanji itself → because of this, you don’t learn them ordered by usefulness and some pretty important Kanji pretty far towards the end
I think there are also translated versions of the book in some other languages.
I have also tried out multiple other Apps and courses, including Renshuu and Jalup, but none of these quite worked for me.
Of course, I would also try to watch as much Japanese TV and videos as possible, play Japanese games and listen to Japanese music. Just so your brain is constantly confronted with the new language. You will pick up lots of phrases and get a good feel for the language without much effort.
If you are not sure yet if the language is for you, I would try to get a feel for it with Duolingo. It seems to be the best free app.
If you are confident that you want to learn the language, and you have some money to spend, then I have some more recommendations:
Pimsleur (The most expensive course I have tried (around $500 for the whole course, or as subscription for ~$23 per month).
I quite like this course because you see how you get better every day. Also, over time, the lessons speed up, so you end up learning to speak at a normal conversational speed.
LingoDeer ($160 for the lifetime license, or as a subscription for $15 per month)
I found this course to be very well-structured.
Book: Remembering the Kanji (James W. Heisig)
I use this book to learn the Kanji because I had trouble remembering them just by using learning apps. As a free alternative, you may also want to take a look at KanjiDamage.
I have also tried out multiple other Apps and courses, including Renshuu and Jalup, but none of these quite worked for me.
Of course, I would also try to watch as much Japanese TV and videos as possible, play Japanese games and listen to Japanese music. Just so your brain is constantly confronted with the new language. You will pick up lots of phrases and get a good feel for the language without much effort.