It's a step by step process when learning the written language of japanese, which can be said to be definitely one of the most difficult WRITING systems in the world.
You have to know all four ways to actually know how to write in japanese.
romanji - you use this when you type on a computer to create hiragana, katakana, kanji characters
Katakana - you use this for foreign loan words or "new" more modern words
Hiragana - you use this for endings and other things like that
Kanji - usually the "root" or base of any word
this is probably stuff you already know, but the truth is you can't just learn katakana/hiragana/romanji and be okay with the language. I've been studying japanese for a year now and I know proficiently kata/hira and probably know 40-50 kanji characters and I still probably have hmm 1000+ more kanji characters to memorize before I can become proficient in writing/reading. Hiragana is actually used less than most people believe. Hiragana is mainly used as ENDINGS for kanji roots and japanese people rarely (if not at all) use them as full actual words (although many kanji characters have a hiragana sign above it to help people, I wouldn't depend on these sorts of "shortcuts") If you're beginning to learn Japanese you don't have to learn in a specific order, but just master hiragana/katakana/romaji way before you try and learn kanji
The oral language itself isn't difficult and the grammar and syntax of the language is actually pretty easy to overcome and after a year you will definitely be proficient enough to have a very FORMAL conversation with someone. (stuff like "Hello my name is ______ i am a student blah blah blah") but it takes much longer to actually learn more casual speech and conversation like when you talk to your friends you don't say "Hello my friend I am wondering what you are doing this day" it's the same issue and japanese has more "problems" with many speakers because japanese has issues with Honorifics or in simple terms with conversational "politeness" which isn't quite integrated into many languages and this takes time to learn as well.
To be honest there's no way in hell you can become at a intermediate level in japanese in a year.. even if you lived in japan that's a huge goal to learn how to read/write/speak/understand at a intermediate level in such a short amount of time. If you're learning on your own I suggest you find a skype partner or someone in japan to communicate with because you aren't going to learn anything by just "watching animes and tv shows" without any output made by you or without any actual conversational practice. I also suggest you take a class or find a tutor to help you because like I said before you won't learn without any conversational practice.
To give you some advice though, if you ARE truly dedicated to learning the language you have to be patient and keep practicing and trying. I've seen so many people give up because it was TOO hard and their only real goal was to "watch anime, read manga's". If you have a strong dedication to learning the language you will, but if you are like everyone else who just wants to watch anime, play games, read mangas then I don't think your motivation is in the right place.
As for shortcuts there are none.. only shortcut I know in learning any second language is moving to the place where the second language is used as a first language (so move to japan).
Good luck, and sorry for the whole essay just like to give the TRUTH about learning Japanese.
This post was edited by Diet_sushi on Aug 5 2009 09:23am