Unfortunately if you like in the United Kingdom then part of your school life will be spent learning another language. In fact when I was at school I had to learn not one, but two languages simultaneously, yet 10 years on (or in fact about 6 months after leaving school) then I can barely remember one word of them and have never used what I learnt in any way. So what is the point?
You need to really want to learn a language if you want to succeed, you can’t just buy a little learn German DVD over the internet and go through that for an hour or two as you won’t be able to use what little you learn, even on holiday. Or even worse, if there is a phrase you can learn on the DVD, like ‘Please tell me where I can buy food’ or something along those lines, then the person you are speaking to might assume you can understand them and try speaking to you in their language!
To be able to speak and understand the language to any degree then you need to invest both time and money in getting lessons a year or so (I know I had years of lessons, but I wasn’t interested in learning the languages so that is why I didn’t retain any of it). It will take a lot longer than that to become fluent in the language, but you will be able to hold a basic conversation with someone and know a lot of useful phrases and words to help you out too. If you don’t want to get that serious though as you only holiday in the country every so often, then I think you are better off getting a phrasebook. That way you have nothing to remember and can show the phrase to the person even if you can’t pronounce it.
