conversation before reading?

[Johnny]

I've been struggling to learn kanji for a long while now. It's the only thing that seems to slip me up when it comes to learning Japanese. I've been looking everywhere for tips on how to learn it but I always come to the same old flashcards and memorization, which has obviously failed.
So I was wondering.. would it be best to completely learn conversational Japanese before getting into written? That way I could practice reading and writing without having to learn the grammar and pronunciation at the same time.

Thanks much.

[Max]

I think you should learn everything at the same time, but bit by bit.
It's no use to even ask how Japanese learn kanji since they can already speak Japanese before they study kanji.
Learning kanji in context would be my tip, you'll see the useage/useages of the kanji then, and probably learn more than just the kanji. Start with hiragana and katakana and then move onto grammar while studying vocabulary and kanji.
And why not watch some Japanese movies/drama/anime or whatever you like, to get your listening skills, but keep in mind that listening comes bit by bit by studying vocabulary. Until one day you realize "hey! i can understand that!" hehe.

[Sai]

i think that the best way to learn it is to do a bit of everything all at once, i'm using rosetta stone and they slowly introduce you to kanji, hiragana, and katakana all at once, just simple stuff at first but it builds on itself and you learn a lot that way, it would be very difficult if you didn't learn any kanji and then you suddenly decided that it was time and you tried to learn a bunch all at once without ever having used it before