Reading practice!

For some reason, most learners of Japanese are so disheartened by the sheer number of kanji that must be learnt in order to read that they give up entirely! I've already recommended you use Perapera-kun for deciphering Japanese web-pages, but of course that isn't really applicable to hard copies of things, nor for long-term memory.

If you only know a few kanji, I'd hardly recommend ordering a Japanese novel and just trying to decipher it as you go along (I tried this a couple years back, and failed miserably. It takes too much effort for too little payoff). However, that's not to say that you should give up entirely on your pursuit of reading ability, nor be reliant on electronic aids. Fortunately, there are a few books out there designed for learners of Japanese that are nothing but text, with textual aids.

I'd like to recommend Giles Murray's books to this end. His second book, Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text, is an extraordinary aid to learning to read. He has done all the hard work for you, giving at the bottom a translation and reading of every single word (above a basic level). Further, he gives an English translation, page-by-page, for every story in the book. If you want to learn vocab, kanji, and a plethora of grammar, this book will help you immensely. His third book, Exploring Japanese Literature: Read Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata in the Original, has exactly the same format, at a more difficult level of reading.

One last tip: never use romaji. Ever. It's bad for your health, and you'll never learn to read actual Japanese. 仮名を習え、このやろう！