Remember that all your learning styles are different, so think about the ways in which you learn best to plan your self-study. These are some activities that I used when I was learning a language
1) Reading stories- I don't read newspapers in English, so I wouldn't read them in French or Spanish either. What I do like are stories, as imagining them and having a picture in my head helped me to remember the language, so I've read a lot of fairy tales and childrens' stories.
2) Films- I love watching films, so watching in another language is not really hard work! Almost all dvds have subtitles now, and so you can read and listen at the same time. If I watch a film in another language, I never use English subtitles though, it's much too hard to work in two languages at the same time- much better to watch in French with French subtitles, and repeat parts of the film to get more details and build vocabulary.
3) Travelling on my own- It's not for everybody, but I like to go away on my own and manage my own time, and this was the best thing for learning other languages. If I'd been with another English person when I went to France and Spain, I would never have met so many people, had so many experiences, or learned so much of the language.
4) Keeping a vocabulary notebook- you often learn the best and most useful expressions by talking to people- in shops, in clubs, in the pub, on public transport etc...It only takes a minute to write some of them down while you're in the place, so you don't forget. At first, I thought people might laugh at me, but my French friends really liked it, and would add more expressions to my book as they could see I wanted to learn more and more...
5) Keeping a diary. I found it easiest to learn other languages by connecting them to my own experiences- writing down what I did and thought in French or Spanish- a bit like you'll do in this blog. Maybe it's because I'm a bit self-centred.....!
6) Music and songs- I really love a lot of French singers and rappers- listening to a lot of different music made me want to understand the words, and listening really helped me with the rhythm of pronunciation.
