I'm teaching myself Japanese and sometimes French and Finnish.
The most motivational thing for me is probably AJATT.
>http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/I linked someone else to a site called Uz-Translations, it's very good. It's got downloads of thousands of textbooks, audio courses, grammar books, basically everything.
And beyond that, I subscribe to some learning blogs written by native speakers, and read them when I'm too lazy to study harder.
Anki, the flashcard system, is good. If you just peck at it a little each day, you'll make a lot of progress, and feel good about it, too.
And then there's searching for media in the target language. I'm currently basically downloading the entire Aichuun website, since it's got a lot of at least okay Japanese pop music in one place.
I also listen to Japanese news TV and radio shows in the background when I'm doing other stuff.
And as regards writing, especially kanji - I find it really dull to write the kanji out a lot, and I remember reading somewhere that you really only need to write a kanji two or three times each time you come upon it to remember it. So, instead, what I do is I write it until I have the stroke order learned, and after that, I only search for it on the Yamasa dictionary, since they provide handwritten examples. I practice the handwritten example, so that when I ever go to Japan, I can write lazy kanji like a mature adult, and not full, careful kanji like a retarded child.
You can also browse sites like JDIC or Jisho.org. I read in a book by a woman who spoke many languages, that the first thing she did was read a dictionary in her native and her target language. If you find an interesting word or concept, it can be fun to see how Japanese (or your target language) breaks it down.
I have a habit of picking a word, kanji, or concept I like, and copying all related examples of it in the dictionary into a new Anki deck, which I look at, but do not seriously study, when I am very bored and don't want to work. It can be a good way to tide yourself over.
There's also actually reading material in the language. Pick a topic you LOVE, and find shit on it. I don't believe in horoscopes, but I'm fascinated with them anyways, so I'm currently working through a site in Japanese about fortune-telling. It doesn't feel like work, because I enjoy reading on the subject, even if slowly.
Also, download Rikaichan, if your browser can handle it. It's the best. When you get further along in your studies, try not to use it like a crutch though. But for beginners, it's a godsend.
