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How do you get through this? Especially in regards to reading. How do you
practice reading at beyond the beginner level (No little black sambo's or
whatever other children's books like I found in the local free bin when I was
a teenager) when a light novel is still light years beyond me. And a newspaper
is just as hard.

I know around 600-800 kanji, and I can pass the level 2 listening JLPT, though
I'm not quite there for reading and grammar (I can barely pass level 3 on
those), but I feel like I've been spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere
for a long time now.

What are good techniques for learning to read in Japanese? Especially for
self-taught students of Japanese.

What are techniques to push through the vast wasteland that is "intermediate"?
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learning readings
Does anyone have advice on how to get over/through/around the intermediate language plateau? (Self-learner)
I've written down and practiced with flash cards alike programs for several
hundred/thousands times for ~2000 kanjis when I was intermediate level at that
time.

Edit: My method may be different with other does somehow. My aim was not to
translate to another language to understand Japanese, but to learn just like
how Japanese people learn the language. I started learning with Roman-ji at
first, but dropped it and changed it to Hiragana, Katakana, then after managed
to learn some Kanjis, I tried to read native books and texts on internet, and
tried to use Kokugo (Japanese-Japanese) dictionary first to get the meaning
that I don't know.
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At your level you should be starting to read authentic Japanese materials, I
recommend manga, Japanese visual novels, and/or video games with dictionary
beside you. The only thing you will learn from textbook at this level will be
grammar and if you are only looking to speaking conversational Japanese
grammar isn't actually that important, but if you want to increase vocabulary
you have to rely on written material with dictionary. Anime/drama is a good
way to do ear-training and retention exercise but they are rarely helpful for
learning new words because the pace is too fast. (at least in my case)

That being said it also depends on what your goal is. If your goal is purely
to learn Japanese to understand more of manga/anime then you should focus on
reading material and less on grammar because grammar usually comes naturally
after exposure to authenticate Japanese materials, and if your goal is to be a
Japanese linguistics major then you should also be focusing on grammar as well
because you need to understand the terminology behind it rather than just the
intuition. But as with learning any language, after a while you will develop
an intuition for grammar after exposure to the language for a long time so
unless you need to teach Japanese you don't need to study grammar in detail.
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* Study comprehensive grammars with lots of examples. Not textbooks. [These](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/4789004546) are the best (there are three).
  * use a mnemonic kanji learning system. [This](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0824831659) one is awesome. Learning meaning and reading separate is fine because it is more efficient. Utilize similarities between kanji as much as possible, as relating knowledge to new ideas will make learning much faster.
  * Go to Japan, and stay there for a long time. Talk to Japanese people as much as possible. 
  * Make a regular study period of at least an hour every day. Never skip. Read materials that you are interested in, and write down the words you don't know. You can look up grammar in those books (organized alphabetically) or ask here.
  * Throughout the day, while walking or whatever, take out that list and study it. You can keep a list of Kanji to study, too. 
  * Another great use of walking time is repeating difficult phrases. Tongue twisters (早口言葉) found on the internet or any phrase that you have trouble saying is fine. Say it a thousand times on the way to work and make sure it's fluent.
  * Never settle for "kinda" understanding something. Be thorough in studying out every new vocab, kanji or grammar that you find.
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Some advice from my own experience in that vast wasteland:

  * You won't push through without challenging yourself. You will never wake up one day after studying grammar and vocabulary and find that you can easily pick up a novel and read it; you have to pick up material that is too hard for you and make your slow way through with a dictionary.
  * That said, there is a wonderful literary form practically designed for learning intermediate Japanese: MANGA. Short sentences, furigana, illustrations, and a grade-school reading level make manga a pretty ideal way to learn a language.
  * Find a native speaker (or cross your fingers that this site takes off) to help you with questions about more advanced grammar, vocabulary, or usage rules. 
    * This goes double if you want to get good at speaking and listening!
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I would stay away from newspapers since they use a lot of non-standard words
and special shortened versions of words that you find in dictionaries.

For myself, what i did was translating short 1 page japanese essays into
english. As I usually knew all the grammar, it was a great way to learn new
words.

video games are great as well, except that it ceases being a game to have fun
and becomes a studyign regime. So if you do this, my recommendation would be
to not pick a game you want to do.
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I'm currently in the same plateau, but I can give some advice based on some of
the things I'm doing.

  * Textbooks are longer used except for anything but explanations of grammar. In fact, sometimes just dictionaries of grammar work just as well, if not better. I recommend "A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar" and "A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar" by Michio Tsutsui. It is a great reference and covers a wide range of grammar with examples and explanations. Not to mention contrasts to similar grammar.

  * I've started reading Manga (I'm not a huge fan) but they're authentic material and have a lot of furigana. I started with よつばと, quite fun and easy to understand.

  * I've started my way through two books named "Reading Real Japanese" one focusing on short stories and one focusing on essays. They take famous essays and short stories and layout the Japanese on one page with explanations in English on the opposite page. These have been great because it allows you to read REAL Japanese but when you come across a term you don't know it's right there on the opposite page. It's practically training wheels for reading Japanese.

  * Speaking with natives. (Depends on your goals.) I live in Japan so I can find language exchange partners relatively easily, however for people overseas you can easily find language exchange partners on Skype for free. 

  * Writing. You can start writing at lang-8.com for free where native speakers will correct it. This is a great way to reinforce everything you've learned from the methods above.
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I was at your level about a year ago, and I think you're closer to reading
newspapers than you think. To get to the point where you can read most
newspaper articles with reasonable comprehension (with only a little of help
from **rikaichan**!), you should:

  * Learn between 1000-1200 kanji - you already know 800, so you're not far. **N.B.** Focus on [frequency of use](http://www.tidraso.co.uk/kanji_frequency.html) (It's quite eye-opening seeing those distribution graphs).
  * Work through the **core6000** decks in [Anki](http://ankisrs.net/)
    * These decks introduce the words by frequency of use in newspapers (actually there is a **core2000** deck that covers the first 2000 words, and then the **core6000** deck carries on from word 2001 - but **core2000** will probably be too easy for you).
    * They'll also improve your listening comprehension and get you used to reading whole sentences. You can find them simply by searching for "core6000" in the Anki shared decks. Even just doing the first 1000 words of this deck will get you a long way.
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