Learning the kanji
Learners of Japanese always run into the "learning kanji" wall, and usually that wall has the shape of the jouyou kanji set. There are 1945 jouyou (常用) or "common use" kanji in Japanese, divided in seven sets: six sets which get taught in elementary school, and a general set that you get in junior high school.
In addition to these 1945 kanji there are also 865 jinmei (人名) or "name" kanji that may be used in Japan, which leads to a combined set of 2810 kanji that you should for all intents and purposes know. While it used to be the case that the name kanji were 285 kanji that were essentially "name only", the most recent addition of close to 600 kanji to this group includes many kanji which are considered kanji that any literate person would know and as such it is recommended you learn their normal meaning and readings too.
I've split up the set of kanji into 5 a day, for a total of 389 days (that's only a little over a year), but no one says you should only ever do 5 a day - if you feel you can do more, do more!
- Pomax