I'm having a problem...

[eddnav]

I learned katakana and hiragana, but now... I don't know what to do, some people tell me to learn kanji, other people tell me to study grammar... I don't know please guide me I don't want to lose the hope of learning japanese

[Javizy]

Do both. Learning kanji takes too long to put off, so I wouldn't listen to whoever told you that. Check out James Heisig's 'Remembering the Kanji 1', it makes learning the characters as easy as possible, but don't kid yourself, it still takes a lot of effort.

[Psy]

Lots of people ask about kanji, so I always direct them here:

J-pod's longest kanji discussion thread.

By learning hiragana and katakana you have laid a great foundation for everything that is to come. The more books/materials you have the better, but you already have a huge (and free) resource here at J-pod 101, and you can cover lots of conversation, vocabulary and grammar just by listening in every day. To start, my advice would be to spend 6 months or so to fully study all of the newbie/beginner lessons. An electronic dictionary such as JWPce or WaKan is also a good tool to have access to from the get-go.

がんばってください (Good luck!)

[jemstone]

as ジャウィジさん and Psyさん said, do both.

remember when you were still a kid and you were learning how to speak? you probably didn't learn the words first and then learn grammar. you probably learned both at the same time. in the beginning the words and grammar were simple ones, and slowly they became more advanced and tougher.

i think that's how you should look at it. do both. but the simple ones first. and as time goes by, the kanji becomes more difficult, the grammar points become more advanced, but it'll be no sweat for you because you're slowly moving up the scale.

がんばるよ！

[プチクレア]

You should definitely do both. If you don't learn the kanjis, even though your grammar is perfect, you'll never have access to the material that contains it; and if you learn all kanjis and no grammar you won't be able to read anything either, plus you'll have to work like mad to keep remembering all those kanjis you won't use...