Beginning Japanese: linguaphiles

Beginning Japanese

Could anyone advise me as to the best way of starting Japanese? My fifteen-year-old son's passion for anime has sparked an interest in learning Japanese that seems to be quite genuine. He has not been the most successful learner of modern foreign languages so far but the difference between his success levels in those he has been exposed to seems to be down to the teaching methods. He responds better to more formal tuition in grammar - rather the way I was taught Latin, with verb tables and vocabulary lists - rather than the 'direct method' that is popular with language teachers and is presumably more successful with the natural linguists amongst us. The which I am not. His school, despite being a Language College, doesn't teach Japanese. I'm quite prepared to pay for him to have group or even one-to-one lessons, which seem to cost about the same as the instrument tuition he has recently given up, but I have no way of judging between the various language schools and teachers offering their services in Cambridge. Some appear to teach Japanese initially in the Roman alphabet, others get started straight away in Kanji (which from my experience of learning Hebrew sounds the better way to go). Any thoughts? And apologies if this is a much-asked question - LJ isn't the easiest place to search.

(Reposted here from my own LJ on

alienor77310 's recommendation - thanks!)

Have started by ordering the DS game, Let's Learn Katakana & Genki 1 (from the Japan Centre - thank you freecloud13 ) - thanks to everyone for your very informative and enthusiastic responses.

Beginning Japanese

Are these symbols Korean or Japanese?

諦める and 諦めがつく

グズグズ meaning

Error

Are these symbols Korean or Japanese?

諦める and 諦めがつく

グズグズ meaning