My lofty language goals | My language mission and my log | Forum

Go for it! That's basically what I did with Hebrew last year before starting the 5 month intensive course (4 hrs a day, 5 days a week). I went through an entire beginners book, start to finish (I didn't write the answers to the exercises, but I did do all the exercises in my own head) to review the grammar and vocab, and also did the beginners course on LiveMocha for the feedback on writing (I didn't know about Lang-8 at the time) and pronunciation and to get myself back into studying it and all that definitely helped me get placed in the advanced class rather than the intermediate one.

I'm not saying you have to go right back to basics (although it's definitely good to be clear on those) rather than pushing yourself, but being in the headset for the languages is certainly important.

Most important, though, is to take any opportunity you can get to speak to people in your languages. That's easier for me since I was learning (and am now improving/keeping up) the majority language here, but I get to use French fairly regularly too. I even have phases of specifically getting out my crochet/knitting on the bus just because it gets people asking me what I'm making and thus conversing with me. Even if you just have more conversations in English, it's good practice for speaking to strangers in other languages, where you'll have an extra nervousness.