Flash cards are awesome supplements to help you learn Japanese, or any language for that matter.
I think it is best to learn from someone than to learn on your own, especially to understand some of the stuff, like pitch and proper pronunciation. Both of which can be laid out in text but to actually know if you are doing it right is another story. :/
You probably could learn to read Japanese pretty well on your own, though it will take a long time. You can pick up kana pretty fast. Kanji on the other hand can be quit difficult though the basic few are easy to remember.
I think like any language, Japanese is best acquired by being taught, especially by one who has that language as their primary language. It is the small things that we tend to miss if we are to study on our own. Plus there has been a few times my prof told us about errors in our text book, like uncommon spelling of certain words or other ways to say the same thing.
To become actually efficient in it will take a long time, though it is not impossible. |