Japanese is written using a collection of scripts: Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana and to a lesser extent Latin.
I’ve progressed a lot in the language recently, so I’ve updated my perspective on it a bit. Also on how to learn the language. The best advice I can give is that you should do a lot of immersion before, during and after taking a Japanese language class. That’s basically the best thing you could do. There are other things you can do to learn Japanese as well, but doing that (and taking Japanese classes multiple times a week…in my case it was 90 minutes 4 days a week) is probably the most efficient.
I’ve also concluded that the Japanese language is actually quite simple relatively-speaking. It’s difficult for non-native speakers (especially Europeans) because it’s quite different, but I’d actually put learning difficulty separately from the base simplicity of the language. Kanji is like the hardest part, and even then I wouldn’t say it’s that difficult, it’s just a grind.
Granted, I seem to have a bunch of natural and unnatural advantages that help me in this regard, but I don’t think my overall point is incorrect.
In fact, I’ve basically come to the conclusion that expressing stuff in Japanese might end up being easier in the grand scheme of things.
Also, I think my current skill level in Japanese matches (or almost matches) my skill in Czech, which is amusing to me.