I find mixing tasks helps me out. I use duolinguo at home and I have a bunch of Pimsleur tapes (old method but still great for basics) on my phone for various languages that I listen to when I walk home from the gym and I'm still excited from working out.
Of course I seem like a madman walking down the street still flushed from the gym muttering to myself in french or german but hey, that's how it goes sometimes.
I really do think immersion is the best way to master a language but you still need a basic proficiency in it. Then just walk around speaking like an idiot and asking for corrections until you don't sound like an idiot anymore.
You made my evening with that comment. All three paragraphs. I would upvote you twice if I could but alas.
The 2nd para definitely made me chuckle. I could clearly visualise a flushed individual muttering "ich haben eins, und ich brauchen kein" and "Mist! Tut mir leid", etc..... to himself :-) Made my evening.
The last part is a little easier if you're in a context where other people either don't speak English or are unconfident in it. Many Spanish people will be okay interacting with your broken Spanish, for example, but many (most?) Scandinavians will immediately switch to English. I've also had better luck with languages which have more speakers, since they're more used to hearing non-native accents: French or Spaniards or Italians can accept a pretty wide range of pronunciations, but mispronounced Danish ends up completely unintelligible to many people.
mm, the only place I've put this into practice was when I was learning French and living in Quebec, I'd simply say that I was trying to practice and most people would go along with it. I can see it being a problem if your bad accent makes the language unintelligible though.
Of course I seem like a madman walking down the street still flushed from the gym muttering to myself in french or german but hey, that's how it goes sometimes.
I really do think immersion is the best way to master a language but you still need a basic proficiency in it. Then just walk around speaking like an idiot and asking for corrections until you don't sound like an idiot anymore.