Let me see... About speaking, I can't remember how did i do that.... probably it's same as other countries ... like... listening the talk of parents and other adult people, and try to talk many many times...i think it's same at whole world... About reading(and writing), normally we start to learn it at the age of 6 or 7 , at elementary school. First, we learn Hiragana and Katakana, and next, learn Kanji. Since that time, We learn Kanji for about 12 years until graduating from a high school. At that period, we learn for about 2000 Kanji. In fact, Japanese have about 4000~6000 kanji, but most of japanese people don't know all of them. It's like a dictionary of other countries.