First let me say that there is no substitute for a real education from experts. I took 1 semester of Japanese and it was by far the most I ever learned in any amount of time (both in total and in time spent in Japanese study). So this will be slower and harder because you get what you pay for.
Also bear in mind that like most skills (and in fact, in my experience, far more than most skills), language is like a staircase; you will plateau and make no notable progress for a long time, and then one day you'll "get" something and take one step up.
As far as testing your progress, I inherited a habit of talking to myself, so it was pretty easy to try to do that in Japanese and see how well I can say things? I did it for fun so I wasn't really interested in specific milestones. Anyway here's what I would do in order. Please do try other things like live language exchange, local meetups, etc., but basically this is my personal roadmap for a decade of occasional month-long binges of free-time Japanese study:
* Set up Japanese input on your computer so you can type things in moonspeak. I think the next link has something in the resources section but Google works just as well.
*
HERE'S YOUR CURRICULUM: Use <<
www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/|this site>>. It is amazing. I mostly use the grammar guide but I bet the complete guide is also great. I bet the resources section is good too. Just re-read it frequently; it's concise and memorization comes from practice and time.
* Once you've learned the basic kana, use <<
addons.mozilla.org/ja/firefox/addon/rikaichan/|rikaichan>> / <<
chrome.google.com/webstor...bhldikgcjhfnomkfpcebammhp|rikaikun>> to be able to immediately read all kanji on your computer. I am really awful about practicing writing (as in, I've basically never done it other than kana) but after a very long time of just exposing myself to text with rikaichan I've actually gotten pretty okay at reading everyday kanji.
* <<
alc.co.jp/|This>> is my favorite japanese/english dictionary, because it contains loads of example sentences (even if they sometimes have iffy translations). The whole site is in Japanese because it's for Japs, but you should be able to figure out a search field. The problem with a typical dictionary is that you get 5 different words and you have no idea which ones are actually used in everyday speech; by looking through example sentences that resemble what you're going for in terms of form, you might notice that almost all of them happen to use the same word. These translations are not from a single source so this is usually representative of what people actually say, barring regional and generational quirks.
* I think someone in the translators thread mentioned KanjiTomo for reading japanese text in images? I haven't gotten around to needing it. Historically for looking up kanji that isn't in text format, I've used the slow and painful process of using <<
jisho.org/|this page>> to look up individual kanji when I really wanted to know it, though once you learn rules about stroke orders you can save time transitioning to <<
kanji.sljfaq.org/|this one>>.
* The best writing practice site I've ever found on a budget of 0 dollars is <<
lang-8.com/|lang-8>>. You write blog posts and other members correct them, and you can correct people writing posts in English. This is a really good when you know your are still too terrible to have any hope of even a slow live text chat. It sells itself as a generic language exchange site, but the company is based in Japan and the reality is that most of their traffic is Japanese users and English speakers, and most of the Japanese users are trying to learn English.
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The following is something to think about going forward; maybe bookmark this post or bookmark all the links below and shove them in a folder somewhere for later.
As you get better, I highly recommend using video for listening practice. YouTube and "other sources" are fine but an account on <<
nicovideo.jp/|niconico>> will also help. My personal priority is to emphasize enjoyability and maintainability over speed of learning, so I love this method. I prefer to spend a longer time on stuff with less educational value but less pain and boredom. The trick is just to avoid watching Le Fun Animango and end up learning nothing. If you actually like anime, I would insist you avoid anything you truly enjoy unless you can turn the subs off.
It might help trying to find television programs <<
www.youtube.com/results?s...3%82%A2%E3%83%8B%E3%83%A1|aimed>> at <<
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvLAwi1MuBY|young>> <<
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNGU6_xH5xA|children>>. You generally can't find anything with English subs targeted at anyone under 13, but when you're first starting out, subs are a great way to start training your ears. The critical thing is to be willing to treat it like research: make a nonstop conscious effort to try decoding the line before looking down at the sub. Even if you're not at that point yet, see if a word or turn of phrase comes up a lot and try putting it into rikaichan or a dictionary site and see if anything comes up. If not, try the English word you think it might mean and see if there's any results that sound similar to what you think you heard. Pause to look things up, and replay lines frequently (get to know the keyboard shortcuts on your video player for scrubbing in small amounts).
Generally my experience is that the simplest language where you're guaranteed to find subs seems to be in those tsundere comedies, like
Hayate no Gotoku or
Zero no Tsukaima, or one of those all-schoolgirl sitcoms... er, sorry, "slice of life" shows, like
Azumanga Daioh or
Minami-Ke.
However, once you want to try weaning off subs (and really you can try this as soon as you can
occasionally understand a line), for realistic Japanese, absolutely nothing beats Let's Plays. (実況 , 実況プレイ , or 実況プレー in case you want to try searching.) They provide real-life everyday casual speech among peers (i.e. not what you get in anime) with nonstop context (you can usually see what they're talking about on the screen at that moment, i.e. not what you get in news and talk shows). It's a lot easier to focus on study when there's no subs, and the "plot" is way easier to follow than any sub-free anime. They also do a lot of pausing and filler speech when they're not sure what they're going to say next, something you will never hear on a scripted program and arguably the most useful language skill for a complete amateur in a speaking situation because it communicates your emotional state and intention to respond. They interrupt each other, stutter, get surprised and react to things, wonder/conjecture about things on screen, and all sorts of things that TV shows cut out of scripts because no one wants to see the protagonists flounder around like human beings and take longer to move the plot forward. It's absolutely my favorite way to study, although it doesn't do anything for your skills in their writing system.
Minecraft has so far been my favorite because there's a lot of <<
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfspZ3FXS0k|relaxed conversation>> about <<
www.youtube.com/playlist?...Gsua2aEfPSRrnHUAU_5xzYsZU|everyday objects and materials>> and that makes them feel more educational than combat-centric games.
You would think that this approach would leave you with no speaking skills but I've made a point to practice saying things as I learn them and then whenever I try to spontaneously explain or talk about a subject as an exercise it just sort of <<
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnnREr8BV24|magically happens>> because human beings are designed to be able to reproduce language just from hearing it around them.