I have self-studied German from July 2007. I started with Studio D A1 and A2 ( Cornelsen)
These are books for language classes so they are not very good for self-studying but I didn’t have other choices. I needed materials to start 
These 2 books cover the basic German equivalent to level A 1 and A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Language Learning and Teaching. To understand more about German grammar, I read PONS Jetzt klappt’s! German Grammar. The book is in English and its explanation is very easy to understand. I think it is very good for self-studying.
I found great help from my e-dictionary : EX-word XD-GW7150
I bought this e-dictionary in Japan – heaven for electronics 
5 in 26 dictionaries they implemented in this little thing are related to German : English- German ( 2) , Japanese – German ( 3) .
I can easily look up for the pronunciation ( with voice) of a word, its grammatical use, and also the table of verb changes in different cases ( which is great !!!)
I also listened to podcasts from Deutsche Welle. They have great materials for studying German in their website: Deutsche Welle . I did “Deutsch- warum nicht?” for beginners. Another podcast I listened to is MyDailyPhrase-German . My university is 10 minutes away so I could practice German a bit everyday walking there and back home.
In the last 2 months, I had to concentrate on my thesis so I couldn’t studied German at all. But now I’m done with it and I can study German again. My aim is to finish textbooks for level B1 before April. I use “Themen aktuell” this time because they are the only books to study German not written in Japanese that I could find in Kyoto XD
This book is much more difficult than ” Studio D”. I found it hard to even finish the first lesson because there are too many new phrases and new words. So I decided to just study a little bit from this book a day and concentrate more on other materials in Deutsche Welle. I really hope I can develop my German skill fast Starting from…… TODAY! 
