Leaning How To Recognize and Pronounce Basic Japanese Phrases

• 1). To give you an example of the complexity of Japanese orthography, the word "governor" in English is represented by 知事 in Japanese kanji, ちじ in katakana, and by "chiji" in romaji.
  
  The kanjji system is complex and difficult to learn so it is best to focus on learning romaji and a little corresponding katakana first.
  
  
• 2). Learn to speak romaji much like you would learn a Romance language like French or Spanish. Study and memorize enough lexical items (like chiji for governor) to achieve a working vocabulary, start to learn the grammatical conventions, and start putting words together into phrases and sentences.
  
  A couple of the websites in the Reference section offer audio pronunciation guides so you can hear various phrases spoken by a native Japanese speaker.
  
  
• 3). Learn to recognize at least basic katakana (the word katakana is used for both the individual symbols representing syllables and the whole system).
  
  For example, in ちじ, the katakana rendition of "chiji" or "governor", ち is the first katakana pronounced as "chi", and じ is the second katakana pronounced as 'ji".