The best way to learn Japanese?

Hey, as a long term Fakku follower I recalled last year it was one of fakku's staffs (May be Nikon or Jacob I can't really remember) gave a post about how he studied Japanese on his own and get to lv 2 with in a year. Now that was amazing. I remembered he post a text file linked from the main page. In that file contains a short note about the way he studied Japanese and I found it really really useful!

But I lost that link and couldn't find it in fakku anymore whatsoever. So if the writer see this post could you post it again here or host it somewhere we can see? I think it's really useful!

I am personally very comfortable understanding conversation after all these years of watching anime but struggling with Kanji and proper grammar that will see me through Japanese Proficiency exam! Need more help here! Of course I could take a course but I couldn't afford to take a detour from my main college degree. Prefer to do it on my own. :)

What levels are you? and what's your other suggestion apart from my original request?
Let's share the wealth!

Genki is fantastic. I've no idea whether that's the one you mean, but nevertheless.

Dunno bout the particular post but it was most likely Raze. There was an entire sub-forum dedicated to educating us dumb sobs but I think too few users followed through compared to his efforts and it got discontinued (or I'm not seeing it).

Search for a forum (not topic) named "Oshiete, Raze-sensei" if you're interested.

Genki is the textbook we used in my Japanese class, and I have to agree that with the textbook and workbook it's a really good resource.

Also, learning conversation from anime is NOT a good way to go if you want to pass written exams. Anime is full of impolite, casual speech and expressions that don't go over well on graded tests. Be sure you go over all of the correct polite forms (desu, masu, etc) from the beginning, assume nothing you've learned about sentence structure from anime is correct.

Here's the link: https://www.fakku.net/viewforum.php?f=67

And this might be the thread that haruhiz is talking about: https://www.fakku.net/viewtopic.php?t=4558

Conforming only to the polite forms for so long whilst learning languages always frustrated me, as vital as it is...anyway, Pimsleur is also brilliant on the speaking front. I'm more of a visual learner, so that this has been so effective for me is a testament to how good it is. Admittedly I've only done the basic course thus far, but I somehow doubt it gets worse. :)

Thanks a lot guys, I have been browsing that section of the forum and it was extremely helpful, although it's still not the post in the front page I was referring too. It might got deleted or god knows where it went. It's sort of like his personal tips etc. I am quite sure it wasn't in the forum. But anyways, doesn't really matter, just would be enlightening to read that again.

Very true that anime spoken Japanese is not good for the test, it's all proper spoken Japanese.

*needs to learn japanese*
i'm gonna take a college course. hope that will help.

take a class simple as that it all depands on the tequniqes they use. I need to take one too.

Download PDF's like Read & Speak Japanese for Beginners even though its hard to understand will its my first month to read it maybe if i read it more than 100 times i might learn a little in less than a year.

worry about conversational japanese and romanji first before getting into the thick of it. all three of japans writing systems are used collaboratively for reading and writing, so learning a good amount of kanji wont effectively help untill you have a collective knowledge of katakana and hirogane as well. i would establish a good vocabulary in romanji before you get too involved with the other writing systems. as for how, take a class or something? lol theres plenty of ways to apply yourself, if your confident enough all you really need is a reliable text book or software.

Thanks guys, I have commanding memory of romanji character both hiragana and katakana and a handful chunks of Kanjis. I already took a course once last year and took an exam. Am now at lv3. (my apologies that I didn't mention in the first post)

But the boundary between lv3 and lv2 is like heaven and hell. That's why I set up this topic because I remember staffs posted about an astonishing way of getting to lv2 in a short period of time. Regardless, all your helps are appreciated :) Guess need to take a course once more if I have enough time to spare.