Hello!!! I’m currently learning Japanese, and I know a few words and can kinda introduce myself a bit! And I know Hiragana and Katakana. The only issue is that for most words, they have Kanji, which kinda restricts how I learn new vocabulary due to having to remember the Kanji themselves. Thankfully, I’m using WaniKani and am getting help with that! But also because of this, I struggle with speaking and listening. I’ve been trying to listen to a Japanese podcast, have sticky notes around my room with sayings and sentences, and I even watch anime a ton! So I’ve been trying to immerse myself, but I can really only partially write. I know that because Japanese has a different structure, so it won’t come as easy as Spanish (which I’m also learning) or English. But I just wanted to ask this: how do I get better at all aspects of Japanese overtime and how do I learn words and retain them? And better yet, how can I get better at speaking and other aspects of Japanese besides writing. Also, the different variants and rules of Japanese are confusing such as polite forms and past tenses, not to mention the fact that I can barely form sentences. Additionally, I find it very confusing how in sentences, native Japanese speakers actually tend to shorten or take off the subject of the sentence because it’s already implied. I know that’s apart of the language, but will doing that come easier over time as I learn more words or no? For example, if I wanted to say, “I like to study Japanese and Spanish,” I would say, “私は日本語とスペイン語を勉強のが好きです。” But, in this case, a native speaker would just take off the subject and the sentence would become, “日本語とスペイン語を勉強のが好きです.” which literally means the same thing. So I need some help please. Any advice is deeply appreciated as I’m trying to navigate Japanese along with Spanish, but Spanish is yielding far more results than Japanese and I don’t really know why! 私は助けが必要です!
Well, I’d say that the answer is to do exactly what you are doing – to study all aspects (kanji, vocab, grammar, reading, listening, etc.) separately and to immerse yourself.
It’s just that it does take time, and there would often be times when you’d feel like you are not making any progress. The important thing is to remember that that feeling is wrong – and you are making progress, it just hasn’t reached the critical mass yet.
If you have already started listening to podcasts – that means you must know enough grammar to also start reading simple resources like
or
If you don’t mind news, there’s also a great site
which would allow you to practice both reading and listening.
And there’s also a fantastic
Though that one is not free
As for why Spanish is yielding more results than Japanese – if your native language is English or another European language – then Spanish would be much closer to it than Japanese and thus easier to learn 
Btw, did you know about Nihongo con Teppei?
If not – I think you might quite like it – it is a great podcast for beginners and the author also knows Spanish
Anyway, the key is to keep studying every day – and it would start clicking!
So, best of luck with your studies! 
Assuming you’re a native English speaker, this is very much expected. Spanish is a related language to English, so there are similarities of grammar and a lot of vocabulary overlaps and relations, and of course the writing system is the same. So for instance I’ve never studied any Spanish, but this happens to be the top headline of El Pais right now: “El Gobierno prepara un plan económico para revitalizar Ceuta tras la crisis migratoria” and I can make a pretty good stab about what the article is about based only on the vocab and grammar links to English. Japanese gives you almost none of that – there are katakana loanwords, but those are a relatively recent layer of vocab in Japanese, and don’t help with most of the common basic daily use words.
So yes, it’s definitely harder than learning another Indo-European language. I find that means you need a bit more perseverance, a bit more active attention to learning vocabulary, and maybe a bit more work on grammar. Personally I think textbooks are pretty good at mapping out a path through this for the beginner and gradually adding new things in a sensible order; other study approaches work too.
I’m also learning Japanese and Spanish. (I moved to Mexico because my Japanese spouse was transferred here.) The Spanish is definitely easier, though I found that I got massively better with my listening and speaking when I started working at a bilingual school and had to use my Spanish every day.
Japanese is definitely harder to master because the base is so different. I would recommend finding a way to be accountable for your learning every week as a way to stay motivated. For me, I take classes, as well as having someone to practice conversation fairly regularly. But for you, that might look like goals for studying a certain amount each week.
This article explains that for English speakers, it takes 400 to 550 hours to learn Spanish to a B1 level, whereas it’s 1500 to 2000 hours for Japanese. How Long Does It Take to Learn a Language? (Re… | Hello Nabu Whether it’s an accurate estimate or not, it will probably take 3 times as long or more for Japanese, and the first time you go to Japan, you may still feel you are lost with language. If you have a goal or reason for your studies (travel, plans for working in Japan), this may make the journey easier.
Oh actually, the only podcast I know is Nihongo con Teppei, and I can really only understand some of the things that he’s saying! So should I just continue to immerse myself and try to stay consistent? But also thank you for the advice!
Oh I’m actually using Nihongo con Teppei and am watching anime and listening to Jpop! I at least know a couple or verbs such as 行く,する,飲む,読む, and 食べる. So I’ll do my best to continue with the words that I know. ありがとうございます！
Ohhhh okay. I now realize that progress will come with time! So I’ll do my best to continue with my study plan and hopefully I improve!
To see quicker results you may also want to focus on one skill more than the others. Rather than work on all the aspects at once having a focus for months will yield more tangible results.
I strongly agree with @SarahSh that working toward a goal (with intermediate milestones) would help a lot.
how do I learn words and retain them?
I’m gonna be lazy and link a previous answer I had 
Early stage I think WK is amazing, then as soon as you’re confortable to work on sentences as a base unit (a few hundred kanjis, maybe one to two thousand vocab are enough) branching into anki, bunpro, jpdb and work on your own content or graded readers.
At your stage, I’d avoid trying to improve “all of Japanese” at the same time. It’s much easier to make progress if the same vocabulary and grammar start connecting across reading, listening and speaking.
For example, if you learn:
〜たい = “want to do”
don’t stop at knowing the rule. Try to notice and reuse a few real examples:
-
日本に行きたい
-
これを食べてみたい
-
もっと日本語を話したい
The goal is for 〜たい to eventually feel like one chunk rather than something you consciously conjugate and translate every time.
For listening, I’d also work with very short sections rather than whole episodes. A useful loop is:
-
Listen once without looking at anything.
-
Try to catch whatever you can.
-
Check the Japanese subtitle or transcript.
-
Identify exactly what you failed to hear or understand.
-
Listen again without reading.
If the sentence contains too many unknown words, I’d just move on. As a beginner, 5–10 sentences you can almost understand are much more useful than trying to decode an entire anime episode.
And don’t worry if vocabulary you recognise when reading feels completely different when you hear it. Seeing a word and recognising it instantly in connected speech are separate skills, and the second one needs its own repetition.
When you hit a line in an anime that you almost understand, what do you currently do ? replay it, check the Japanese subtitles, look up the words one by one, write it down somewhere, or just keep watching?