Basic phrases and numbers are a necessity for anyone traveling to a country where English is not the first language. Students studying a foreign language for a brief period and who only intend to use it when traveling will have mastery of basic phrases and numbers as an objective. Get a good phrase book that comes with a CD, and play the phrases while reading them aloud from your phrase book. Repeat until you can remember these phrases without difficulty.
Basic fluency in a foreign language requires daily practice and drills to accomplish. Get a beginner's course pack including a textbook and CD. Follow the directions for pronunciation, and listen to the audio lessons from the CD and repeat. Follow the exercises in the book until you have mastered the grammar and vocabulary. Find a native speaker to practice with. Once you find that you can have a conversation in the foreign language and understand most of what is said, you have achieved a level of basic fluency.
Advanced fluency requires greater effort than basic fluency and will take longer to accomplish. Complete lessons from advanced level text books, read the newspaper in your target language and watch television shows and movies in the foreign language. You will have to practice your language on a regular basis with a native speaker, and you should request that she point out errors in your speech and pronunciation.
Specialized fluency can be an objective of someone who needs to work in a foreign language but does not have knowledge of the technical terminology in that language as well as someone who has to do research in a specialized area in a foreign language. Get a list of translated terminology, and practice the new words by ready them over aloud and using them in sentences to show their correct context. Have a friend or colleague go over the words to test your retention of the new words.