Now i have always had an interest in learning Japanese. The problem is that i don't have money and i don't want to go buying books. Im basically looking for a free online alternative for learning Japanese, anyone know a way?

There are loads and loads of free online stuff on how to learn Japanese, like on youtube, someone said if you really want to learn Japanese you must use as many different resources and surround your self in it learning Japanese,

NHK world website has a free Japanese lessons here is a link - copy and past -
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/japaneasy/
also on NHK world news channel they also do some lessons as well,

One of our Dollar members posted this website, I can't remember who they are and if they own it, but I saved it in my favourites because it's good,
copy and past -
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-5C3lDiZyyIfmQ0RDQ0Vy1GVjFtdjVvT1FhcGF6NGZfQVo5YU9ZdGdUU3A0d3FsZG0wanM

I have another good one but you would have to buy books or kindle downlaod for it,
copy and past- https://www.howtodrawmanga.com/

Yea there is a great website called Duolingo which will teach you a lot, I use it for German but have tried the Japanese on it a bit. Duolingo teaches you a few words then helps you make sentences, then teaches you a few more etc. For vocab use memrise it is a free flash card website and app. They have a pro version but the free one is good as long as you have wifi (pro lets you download).

There are also tons of YouTube channels the 101 channels are great so look up Japanese 101 on YT.

Reddit has a great group which has chat rooms etc. You can post questions if you are stuck.

There is a massive old set of courses by the FSI which are all free, they were used by US ambassadors etc. They are not very exciting but they are really really helpful. https://www.livelingua.com/project/fsi/Japanese/ That is a link to the FSI course.

Remember to use multiple sources since japanese can vary upon your location in japan. :)

How different is Japanese from region to region?

be japanese

As is said in the comments before, there is a lot of stuff on youtube which might be helpful, because you can hear the pronounciation and the intonation.

But if you ask for my personal opinion: I think the most efficient method would be to learn with someone who is Japanese. To learn foreign language online is very hard and doesn´t go so well, from what I heard. I don´t know where you live, but there might be japanese people around. Maybe there is a meeting point or a restaurant where japanese people gather? If you search for Japanese you´ll find some. And I´m sure there are some who want to improve there English too!

But if you rather like to spent your time with websites, this might be helppful:
https://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/list/

>>6 Tim-Tam I believe >>5 Karasu is likely talking about regional dialects/accents,

just like in most countries round the world have regional dialects/accents, just like in England we have a fair few of them, wiki link for just England -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

Here one for Japan -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_dialects

But be honest the OP dose not really have to worry about that too much. :D

>>9 Just wondered because I have heard people say about regional differences in Japanese before and I wondered how different they were. But yea it is likely no big deal, I speak some German (learning it again) and there are a lot of different dialects but if you speak high German (a bit like proper queens English) every one will understand you

>>10 Tim-Tam Yeah exactly right,

In some anime the main character mentions that they have more of a "country accent" and hopes no one at their new school or place notices, or they might think they are dumb,

regional dialects can change the accents of words and we also get slang words due to subculture of the area, a good example of this is in Birmingham England called "Brummie accent" which can be hard to understand if someone has a really thick "Brummie accent". XD

I used this link to learn hiragana and it works. they have videos,worksheets, and correct pronunciation examples with little hints on how to help you remember how to read them. They teach hiragana, katakana, and kanji. I put the link to hiragana first since its the easiest but you can start on there home page to see whats really going on.

https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/

I'm learning japanese since a year now, and i never bought anything ; I found great ressources, such as :
Japanese Ammo with Misa (yt channel) : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSyd8tXJoEJKIXfrwkPdbA/videos
She explains very clearly with many example and a clear voice many points of grammar, and uses useful vocabulary.

I also like this site for grammar point : http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
It uses a lot (A LOT) of vocabulary, and uses a lot of example, so I greatly improve my japanese.

You only need to type "japanese vocabulary" or "japanese grammar" to find ressources that would be useful to you :)

Others advices would be, first, to realize that learning a langage take years, and that it will be hard to speak it (especially with japanese, which is so different from european langage).
Then, if you have a tumblr, there is a langage learner community who tag their posts with "langblr". You can find people with the same interest as you in learning japanese here, great ressources, and you'll be able to ask questions !

Learning a langage is a very vague concept ; in other langages there is the concept of A1, A2, B1, B2... level ; in japanese, it's called the "JLPT", and there is five level, the first being JLPT 5 and the more advanced being JLPT 1. If you search for "JLPT 5 vocabulary" or "JLPT 3 grammar", you can find list telling you what to learn in what order, making your learning easier.

Finally, please, learn the hiragana and katakana, it can look difficult but you'll feel very proud when you'll be able to read hiragana in pictures, even without understanding it ! And don't let kanji demotivate you, it get easier while you learn more of them :)

I wish you a good luck, japanese is a hard but wonderful langage and I hope you'll make your wish come true ^b^