The sooner you realize that Japanese is an evil trickster fox the better off you are…
It will take some solid dedication to learning Japanese if you want to have any type of ability to use the language outside of introductory sentences or set phrases for travel.
Stop and ponder if you really want to go down the road of learning Japanese…that evil dark forest road @ChristopherFritz mentioned is real…but it can be rewarding. But you’ll have to put in the time. Using AI isn’t really putting in the work.
Check out Natively for book suggestions/ideas for intro and use the bookclubs! Japanese Books for Beginners (~JLPT N5) | Natively
There also readathons for fun that you can join and start with L0 graded readers even… next one is in about a month.
If you aren’t willing to dedicate yourself and put in the work, you’ll end up like many others that quit after 3-6 months because it’s too hard.
It’s not too dissimilar from why math teachers don’t let you use a calculator in the beginning… you have to know how to solve the problem first, then you can use the simplifying tools. Otherwise it’s just garbage in garbage out and you won’t realize that the answer on the calculator is completely wrong and makes no sense, because you never learned how the math works to begin with.
If you are looking for places to learn, there is also https://langcorrect.com/ free site where you can practice writing (probably a bit early for you) but you could still practice simple sentences and get corrections from natives. In addition you can review other writing from learners and look at the corrections from others…none of it is AI!!! So shouldn’t get any wonky vocab either. It’s probably way too early for using LC, but you could string together super short sentences for practice and build from there. “This is a pen.” Make them longer and say “That is a fish, not a pen.” avoid the AI garbage is you are a serious learner. Makes zero sense to use AI when you have immediate access the internet and native speakers.
If you want a tutor/teacher, may want to consider italki or other services where you can have a private tutors or teachers that are fairly inexpensive. They are also pushing their AI crap, avoid it…check out the teachers/tutors. Find language exchange partners as well. Plenty of free/low cost ways to engage with the language
… good luck to you …
edit also…there is a game club that just started
another fun way to engage with resources and help from other users.