One thing that's really helped me learn languages is watching tv shows or movies with native subtitles. I had this revelation years ago in Spanish class. At the

One thing that's really helped me learn languages is watching tv shows or movies with native subtitles. I had this revelation years ago in Spanish class. At the time, I had taken years of Spanish in school and yet I could barely speak or understand Spanish. One day, our teacher made us watch Pan's Labyrinth with Spanish subtitles. It was such a struggle to watch, but because the movie is so good we paid attention anyway, and context clues help you along the way. I vividly remember the next morning on the subway to school, where there were two men speaking Spanish and I suddenly realized I could understand everything they were saying. It totally blew my mind that I could finally understand Spanish! I used this same technique years later when I lived in Italy for a summer. It was a lot of work, but I did the following: 1) Learned enough basic Italian grammar that I could translate a sentence by looking up words & conjugation rules 2) I watched Italian movies, both good and "blockbuster" ones, with English subtitles so I could understand the movie 3) Then, I re-watched the movies with Italian subtitles. If I saw/heard a sentence I couldn't immediately understand, I'd pause and hand translate it Even though Spanish & Italian are quite similar, this was still surprisingly effective. I also enjoy watching movies, so it was also quite fun =) There's probably some science as to why this technique works, but I don't know. It's probably because watching tv/movies is most similar to real-life conversations, as opposed to what you get in a classroom or a book. I never knew how to write an essay in Italian, but I also never cared.