GIVE ANSWERS - 日本語

Hey man. I'm studying japanese for a while and for my experience the best way to start is to learn KATAKANA and HIRAGANA. Try to learn the correct sound of each letter so you will don't have "bad habits" in pronounciations later.

Actually, for myself, I started with greetings and using romaji to learn the vocab/sentence structure first. Then until a level whereby I can construct a few simple sentences, I started to memorize Hiragana and Katakana (I started with Katakana then Hiragana as there were lesser "stroke order" in Katakana, although most Hiragana are actually completed with 1 stroke) However, this might or might not work for you, since everyone learns a bit differently. Adjust to your own preference. Main thing is not to be preoccupied with learning the characters that you dont find learning the language fun.. that defeats the purpose.

Hi. Hiranaga system lets you know how to pronounce each word in Japanese. It enables you to search Japanese words in dictionaries and google. So, as rodolfo_eme said, I recommend you to learn the hiragana characters not only in their shapes but also in their sounds.