I think one of the most important things to learn when learning Japanese or any other foreign language is to pick up as many verbs as you can. It’s important to learn about some basic Japanese verbs, before even worrying too much about picking up sentence patterns and other words.
The number of verb forms in Japanese can become a bit confusing unless you make an early start with verbs. Below is a video which discusses some commonly used Japanese verbs that you can instantly start using.
Once you have learned some verbs and want to know all about the different verb forms, you can read my other post here:
http://thejapaneseproject.com/?p=15