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I am something of a language buff. I am a native speaker of English (born in Canada), I speak Croatian fluently (my husband is Croatian and I have been living in Croatia for a number of years; also I was taught Croatian in a family setting). I have university degrees in French, Italian, Latin and Greek. I have taken courses in Modern Greek, Spanish, Catalan, Japanese and German. The next language I would like to begin learning is Sanskrit.
When I begin learning a new language I feel like some sort of detective, using clues and hints from speech to figure out grammatical rules and word definitions on my own, and I love the feeling. The best way to broaden my vocabulary is, I find, reading. The best way to learn how to communicate with people in a foreign language is, well, simply to communicate, even if it means making a few mistakes along the way. There is no need to be shy about making a few mistakes, it is inevitable! The more you speak, the better you get at it, no two ways about it. Yes, you have to get some grammar down before you can get to the point at which you can start to converse with people, but it involves less work than one would think.
If you don't have much of an opportunity to converse with people in the language you are studying, I would suggest watching movies / television in that language, and maybe getting some sort of "conversational" learning cds.
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