If you're a complete "beginner"...

First off, let me begin by saying that I don't believe in language "levels." Nothing should be in terms of "beginner," "intermediate," or "advanced." 

We have defined these because the school system needs a nifty way to carve out how we should approach language learning. For example, while you can pretty easily say you're a complete beginner in a 101 class, who's to hold you back from learning straightforward concepts from the 201 or 301 classes? Who's to force you into taking a whole year of classes to learn basic grammar and vocabulary to begin with?

Rather, in the same way we need to rethink language learning outside of the classroom box, we need to renovate the way we see language abilities.

Personally, I would say the only thing that separates "beginner" and "advanced" is comprehension of various sentence structures and amount of words and phrases to build these sentences.

 

What does this have to do with Baka Neko Subs?

I want to incorporate as many potential Japanese learners as I can because I don't want discourage anyone from who could immensely benefit in their knowledge of the language through contributing in the process. That being said, some things are a given.

1) Become familiar with hiragana and kana.

You can use Anki to do this. Go to File -> Download -> Public Decks -> Kana with sounds. (If anyone else has any other useful resources for this, you're welcome to post in the comments.)

2) Learn kanji meanings.

Learning kanji may be intimidating to anyone not well-versed in Chinese characters, but that's only because of the undeserved stigma behind pictographic characters. James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji is, in my opinion, the best shortcut to learning kanji because it introduces kanji in a logical order according to radicals and teaches you the most important part of the kanji, its meaning, before anything else. If you know the meaning, learning the readings and vocabulary associated with kanji becomes infinitely easier. Just read the Introduction included in the sample pages in the link and you will understand.

Also, use this online resource to help you through your RTK studies as well. With the power of a community of passionate Japanese learners on your side, there's no way you could lose.

3) Learn how to SRS!

AJATT has a great page for that here.

4) Find Japanese media you love!

This one's the most obvious since I think a ton of learners will have been inspired by their favorite series and movies to have begun learning the language. Even still, this needs to be said: make sure you find media that intrigues you so much that you want to learn every line of its dialogue because this is the endpoint to all of the subtitles this fansub group makes.

If you have any questions, insights, or links that you'd like to share, どうぞよろしくお願いします。