Gone are the days when learning a foreign language meant listening to hours of repetitious cassette tapes. Foreign music is available on CD or MP3 in a variety of languages, so choose your language and select music you find interesting and enjoyable. Listen to music each day as a way to build your vocabulary and practice your listening skills. If you hear a word you are unfamiliar with, write it down and look it up in your dictionary later.
Select foreign movies or American movies that have been translated into your foreign language. Movies offer you the chance to enjoy a new storyline and relax while picking up new vocabulary, sentence structure and grammatical patterns.
Flash cards are designed to help you memorize new words and review words you already know. Carry a few flash cards in your pocket or purse to review throughout the day. Review your flash cards as often as possible to increase and improve your foreign language vocabulary.
If you want to achieve fluency in a foreign language, you must be able to speak quickly and in a variety of situations. Practice speaking both with classmates and with native speakers. If you are nervous speaking face-to-face, consider speaking on the phone to hone your speaking skills.
Practice your reading and writing skills each day. You can use worksheets from your foreign-language textbook or, if you prefer more variety in your reading, select magazines, newspapers or short books in your language of choice. As you read, underline words you are unfamiliar with to review later. Practice writing words you find particularly difficult or especially interesting.
Instead of taking a large chunk of time to study all at once, study for brief periods throughout the day. You can review flash cards for five minutes while you wait for a doctor's appointment or listen to a language song while you drive.