I am a self learner I'm still learning Japanese so I can't give you any appropriate advice.Lets hope the replies above gave you some useful methods to read and write Japanese.
It took me two months to completely learn Hiragana and Katakana.Now I think it's been one month after learning the basics that I'm stuck in Kanji.
If there is one thing that I can tell you,It's that Kanji sucks!It's too hard.I don't know about most people but learning Japanese was very easy for me until Kanji came knocking my door with a "YOU ARE NEXT" label slapped on it.I have memorized some Kanji but it is no where near 50 let alone 2000+ Kanji in order to understand Nihongo like a Nihonjin.
I don't mean to scare you or anything but if you really started learning Japanese then be ready for Kanji and Japanese grammar.
One method I used in order to familiarize myself with Nihongo was by watching many Japanese movies and of course animes.Thanks to that I learned some Japanese grammar and many useful one word meanings.
I just hope I'm finished by the time Key releases all its episodic visual novel of Angel Beats!
