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Also, keep using it. Learned languages are like muscles, use them or they get weaker. I've lost a gripload of vocabulary because I haven't been forcing myself to use the language.
*edit - My username, 'saturdayplace' is a literal translation of a town in Hungary: Szombathely. Szombat = saturday, hely = place. I always thought that a saturdayplace would be a cool place.
(1) Watch Spanish TV/Movies (2) Talk in Spanish to Spanish-speaking people (use appropriately) (3) Learn the easy small words first (4) Immediately apply and integrate what you learn with what you already know.
Note: The Spanish I learned in high school was enough for me to be able to speak and understand it fluently (6 semesters). Also note that I can understand several different languages fluently. This may have helped me learn faster than most other people. I say understand because my American accent is too thick to be able to speak in all of those languages with the proper accent.
Best of Luck.
If you are able: (1) Watch Spanish TV/Movies (2) Talk in Spanish to Spanish-speaking people (use appropriately) (3) Learn the easy small words first (4) Immediately apply and integrate what you learn with what you already know. Note: The Spanish I learned in high school was enough for me to be able to speak and understand it fluently (6 semesters). Also note that I can understand several different languages fluently.…
try writing songs in whatever language you are learning. This helped me a lot too.
In summary: just taking a class won't help. You need to practice, practice and practice.
The most effective language tuition I've ever had consisted of daily one-on-one lessons with a tutor who would make me talk and correct me on the fly. If I made systematic errors, he would go over the point of grammar and we woudl do some drills. Every night I had to write a one to three page essay, which he would eviscerate the next day. Having studied a number of languages, I've come to believe that being forced to…
Marry a native speaker. Failing that get friends who are willing to converse with you exclusively in that language. Since it's Spanish, that shouldn't be very hard.
I took a genuine interest in learning the language, and I made a point of hanging out with German-speaking folks on IRC (in my case, mostly demosceners) and the like in order to get an idea of how the colloquial language works. Reading and writing formal and informal German both help tremendously as far as extracurriculars go if full immersion is unattainable, but it's best to supplement that with something like television shows (telenovelas are particularly useful here) and music.
In addition to all of this, I had the goal in the back of my mind of earning a PhD in mathematics someday. That said, at schools in the US, proficiency in one of either French or German (sometimes also Russian and Latin) is often a requirement as it is viewed as an important research skill with respect to late classical and early contemporary literature.
I go with everyone else here, though, and maintain that full immersion is the preferred way to fly.