Hey i'm not exactly from Japan but i have studied Japanese for two years now by myself, the tools i have used is internet lessons watching anime so i can learn how to pronounce the words correctly and in the beginning i made a japanse\norwegian (i'm from norway but you can make a japanese\english) dictionary of the different words you hear or learn
first you write down the japanese word then the english translation of that word that way you can practice the words and learn how to write them in romaji or our western alphabet
I'll give you that net page I used when i started to learn japanese which is really good for beginners
Language - Kids Web Japan - Web Japan this link will take you directly to the language lessons page but of course you can check out the other feautures of this page because you'll still learn ^;~
ganbatte ne? (do your best)