Just wanna take any suggestions for how to study japanese for beginners or any level of experience. Like a lesson plan or a complete guide for how to learn japanese efficiently. Or could you tell me what your japanese self study plan is? I want to know about any podcasts or youtube channels or websites you recommend too!
There's a textbook that goes with it, but you don't need it to follow the videos.
Or if you want a more academic approach, you could try the Genki textbooks (which a lot of universities use). There are premade lists at Renshuu that will allow you to easily follow Genki text books.
Those will get you through the beginning N5 + N4 levels.
Try not to worry too much about being "efficient". Learning a language is going to take time regardless, so allowing yourself time to explore different materials and methods that work for you isn't going to drastically delay your abilities in the long run. Most important is finding a way to study that's enjoyable and keeps you motivated, and is easy to stay consistent with. Those things are individual to each person, so there won't be any one full study guide you can follow that's guaranteed to be right for you.
My own study "plan" at the beginning was simply absorbing as many different beginner materials as I could, to hear each concept explained in as many ways as possible until it all finally clicked. It wasn't really a "plan", I just spent a long time steeping in random beginner resources until I was really confident I had internalized the basics and adjusted to the logic of Japanese grammar (while accumulating lots of vocab and kanji in Renshuu in the background). Then when I moved on to upper-beginner/intermediate materials, I was able to breeze through because of the time invested getting comfortable and developing my vocabulary at the start. So I wasn't what you'd call efficient, but it definitely worked for me and gave me a leg up in the long run.
As for free beginner materials, obviously Renshuu has its own curriculum (Japanese Basics, in the menu) and is a great place to start. If you join the Renshuu Discord server, there are also regular video lessons on that material, and the Discord also has a channel just for people to recommend learning resources to each other (:
I also recommend checking your local library for resources. My own library gives free access to the paid app Rocket Languages, and has several other brands of audio lessons to lend out, and yours might have similar materials. If your own library doesn't have it, the Internet Archive (archive.org) also has the old Pimsleur Japanese tapes available for free.
On Youtube, I think I mostly watched Japanese Ammo at the start because it was the most complete "course" of videos at the time (~5 years ago), but just searching for beginner lessons will provide you with all kinds from different points of view and there's probably lots of new ones now. Cure Dolly is a little weird but very good at summing up the logic of the language if you like a more analytical approach.
