Don't worry about katakana and kanji. Just stick with hiragana for now.

You can get away with just knowing hiragana IMO. Katakana's just used to indicate loan words from foreign countries and other things. Kanji is to make sentences less clutered (since there's no spaces in Japanese) and faster to write.

So like I told Kamal. Learn the hiragana SOUNDs in one week. Maybe learn how to write a, i, u, e, o (using a white board makes this a lot more easier).

As long as you can read and say the hiragana, I feel that I can teach you guys. Since the typing program I gave in my OP simply requires you to write the sounds to write hiragana, you guys can easily type hiragana, without learing how to write it yet.

So take it slowly with writing hiragana, and learn the grammar with me.

Ya, the IME pad or whatever. Haven't downloaded or installed it myself O.o since my parents installed it for me before they gave me this PC.

That Minna no Nihongo book (or rather set) is also pretty good for self study. It comes with the main textbook (all in Japanese), English grammar book with explanations and translations matching the lessons in the textbook, and there are CDs where a native speaker reads the new words, grammar patterns, dialogue and dialogue exercises for every lesson. (There's also a kanji book and a couple of practice books). There are also videos for the dialogues, they found some foreigners for them, it's hilarious (my class has dubbed them the cyborg (American guy, behaves like one) and the Narco Baron (supposed tio be Brazillian). Luckily they don't speak on the CDs, just the videos.

@Akvod, you can give them a look to check what and how they cover (there's also part II, but that's coming next semester for me, so I haven't bought it/looked at it yet).

Of course like most textbooks it starts off with polite Japanese, we're still sticking with -masu verb form. Though our teacher said they were some of the rare textbooks that drop the "anata" for "you" as soon as they deem it reasonable that people are getting used to not always talking with pronouns.

For Flashkards, there are very good kanji flashcards (and there's a kana set too, though I don't think that is necessary) by White Rabbit Press.

Actually pretty much everything from Minna no Nihongo and the kanji flashcards for at least the first two JLPT (Level 4 and 3) are floating around on torrent sites.

I got the White Rabbit Press kanji cards, but for the new words I'm using a program called Anki (it's free, google it up). You make your own flashcards with it and then practice (it also decides on when you need to revise what). There are already a couple of decks shared for Minna no Nihongo, I'm planning on making one for my own for the vocabulary (with sound, since the ones now don't have that)... will actually do that during the weekend, but so far only for lessons 1-8 and then expand it as my course moves along.

This thread is awesome.

It's called Human Japanese. I like that there are quizzes at the end of each chapter. There is a flash card memory game at the end of the hiragana chapters, so that might help with it. Amazon has it for like $20.

Try out the kanji box on facebook. It has a kana quiz (use Grasshopper for absolute novices to the language).

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=5132078849

I'm in level 2 as of now (third semester learning it so far), and have been learning from a book called "Genki"

http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/index.en.html

They're a little strange in terms of how they prioritize vocabulary (we learned hospital before we learned house), but they teach structure really well.

いま、ぼくはさんがっきのにほんごのじゅぎょうです。　”げんき”のきょうかっしょうをつかっています。

oh, and this is how i learned the basics (the first 6 chapters, so the first semester's worth of knowledge)
Lesson 1:
Question sentences
Noun1 no Noun2

Lesson 2:
kore/sore/are/dore/kono/sono/ano/dono/koko/soko/asoko/doko
mo
jya nai
Lesson 3:
Basic conjugation (masu)
Frequency adverbs
the particle wa
masen ka as a suggestion

Lesson 4:
arimasu/imasu
Past tense
takusan
time of day (ichiji, niji, etc.)
to (as and)

Lesson 5:
Intro. to i and na adjectives
mashou
basic counting

Lesson 6:
te form
te kudasai
te mo ii desu/te wa ikemasen
kara

All the Japanese I speak:

Konnichiwa = Hello
Sayonara = Goodbye
Arrigato = Thank you
Shirimasen = I don't know
Abunai = Danger
Dameda = Forbidden
Yamero = Stop

The last three, I know from Kensuke's Kingdom.

Ok, I'm gonna make a syllabus today. It'll be rough. Ty to you and all the other guys who gave me their lesson plans. Please give me feedback on it when I give the first draft.

 Did you try out my "lesson"? Please tell me what you think about it so I can change it.

I agree with Khan that the "Genki" series is probably one of the best textbooks. Also if you plan on using "Remembering the Kanji" do not start learning Kanji the traditional way. It screws it up for you and is much harder to learn the way that is taught in "Remembering the Kanji".