5. Learn vocabulary using mnemonics

One of my weakest points when I got into language learning was my bad memory with words. No matter how often I tried to drill a word into me through rote repetition, it never stuck. It turns out way more fun techniques can help even the foggiest of brains to hold on to the words.

For instance, if you were learning French, you might make an associate with train station for 'gare' as Garfield the cat, frantically running through a train station you know to catch a train to Bologna for the world's lasagna eating competition. The sillier your mnemonic the better. A great site that helps you with examples is memrise.com

Practising before you visit a country, and then being confident enough to carry this on when you arrive can be huge helps