NoriHiragana first: skip the kanji panic
Start hiragana first. Not because kanji is evil — because you can't sound out a sentence without the kana map.
There are 46 basic hiragana. That's a finite list. Kanji is not. Apps love to dump both on day one so you feel "serious." Serious beginners who last past week two usually did kana until it was boring.
Write あいうえお on paper. Then かきくけこ. Five a day beats fifty in a panic. Say them out loud. Recognition without sound is just shape matching.
Practice this in five minutes, not another Anki deck.
Nori is a beginner Japanese app with tiny grammar quizzes and a waitlist before launch.
Katakana can wait until you can read a children's menu in hiragana. Kanji can wait until です and ます feel automatic.
If someone tells you to "just use romaji," they're optimizing for comfort, not for reading. Hiragana is the door. Walk through it slowly.
Hiragana first. It's the sound system. Kanji can wait. A week of tiny daily kana practice beats a weekend crash that you forget on Monday.
Ready for five minutes of Japanese?
Tiny grammar bites, tap-to-reveal quizzes, no streak shame. Join the waitlist.