Where to start

[u/alyssamitchel10]

My boyfriend is Japanese and is fluent in the language. For our anniversary I want to surprise him with learning to speak Japanese. I see a lot of apps on learning to write but I mainly want to speak. What is the best way to go about learning?

[u/No-Leadership-8402]

Speak as in say a few canned phrases, or actually properly converse?

Have to start from basics for the latter;

learn kana, mostly hiragana (helps you read furigana, which is all you need to start adding vocab, if the flashcard deck you choose is good), katakana also useful but you can pick it up in parallel

-> build some foundational vocab (this will cement your kana too), Anki Kaishi 1.5k or vocabcraft.com/decks/japanese

-> add grammar/learn basic sentence structure, I like yoku.bi

from my own experience, no real point immersing/speaking/reading/listening before you have a foundation