Learning a new foreign langauge is always a difficult task, but if you're planning to travel to another country it really helps to be able to communicate with the locals. If you set this as a reasonable goal for yourself, the job of learning a new language becomes much more manageable. Essentially there are three areas you need to focus on separately: grammar, vocabulary, and reading the langauge.

    With the aim of becoming proficient enough to move around freely in a foreign country, vocabulary should be your top priority. Simply knowing the words will usually allow you to make yourself understood, even if you don't string them together perfectly. Lucky for you, vocab is also the easiest thing to tackle. The key to learning the vocabulary is simple: make flashcards. Start by searching the internet or looking through a phrasebook, and pick out some categories you want to learn. Dining, asking directions, using public transportation, and navigating through customs are usually the most important areas where you'll want to develop your language skills. If you don't have a lot of time, don't waste it by learning phrases such as "Do you speak English?".

    Make the vocab from each category into stacks of flashcards. At this point, the amount you have to learn may look intimidating, but you'll soon find that by breaking it up into chunks you'll quickly learn and retain the vocabulary. Pick a category to start with, shuffle the stack, and pull out about 5 cards to go through. Start by learning to recognize the foreign word, quizzing yourself on the English translation. When you have those down, flip the cards over and go through them again. By following this pattern you're less likely to have cards that you get eternally stuck on. Once you feel like you have a good grasp of these 5 cards, put them aside and grab another 5. Repeat the same process, then add your new 5 to the pile you've set aside, shuffle, and go through all of them. Keep doing this until you've conquered the entire stack. As you progress, you will be constantly reinforcing the words, making it very unlikely that you'll forget them.

    A smaller part of your language learning should be devoted to picking up some of the basic grammar. If you were studying the language in college, this would probably be the bulk of your work. Thankfully, though, you don't have to worry nearly as much about it since you just need to establish basic communication skills. Languages vary significantly in the complexity of their grammar, which means some will be much more difficult to learn than others. But, you need to make sure you know the basic word order. In English, the subject of a sentence goes before the verb, and the object goes after the verb. If I say "I kicked the ball", I am the subject, kicked （or "to kick"） is the verb, and the ball is the object. Some langauges, though, do funny things with this order. Japanese is subject-object-verb, which means the action comes at the very end of the sentence. And slavic languages like Russian don't have any fixed order at all, vastly complicating things. In langauges without word order, nouns have to be changed according to their function in a sentence. This is called gramatical case, and while it's a big portion of learning these langauges, it's not for the faint of hearted. For this reason, you can probably safely ignore it for now.

    Like grammar, writing works very differently for different langauges. For example, Chinese has fairly simple grammar, which might be a relief. But the written langauge uses thousands of different characters, each one representing a word or part of a word. Memorizing a lot of these is a task you'll have to decide for yourself if you want to undertake. If you are learning a language that uses the latin alphabet, however, you really should put in the effort to learn how each letter is pronounced. Often, letters are pronounced differently than they are in English, but they usually make only one sound. English is the oddball here, we have 5 vowel letters and about 12 vowel sounds. Spanish, Czech, German, etc… are much more consistent, which means their alphabets make the langauge easier to learn. Of course, there are many other systems out there. Arabic and hebrew generally only write the consonants, Japanese has a symbol for each syllable （about 50 in all） plus special Kanji that represent words. But remember, your task here is to learn just enough to read street signs and labels at the supermarket.

    If you've managed to master some of the language before you travel, you will be received much better in your destination country. Locals everywhere like knowing that you've made the effort to speak some of their language. Best of all, learning a new language expands your mind in a way that nothing else can. You never know when the knowledge you've gained might come in handy.

    学习一门新的外语始终是一项艰巨的任务，但是，如果你打算去另一个国家旅行，它真的很有助于让你能够与当地人沟通。如果你把这作为自己的一个合理目标，学习一门新语言的工作会变得更加易办。本质上有三个方面你需要集中精力，它们分别是：语法、词汇和阅读该语言。

    为了成为足够熟练地在外国自由走来走去的人，词汇量应该是你的当务之急。简单地知道只言片语，即使你没有完整地把它们串在一起，也往往会让你能够表达自己的意思。幸运的是，词汇对你也是最容易处理的事情。学习词汇的关键很简单：制作抽认卡片。从查阅互联网或者浏览常用语手册开始，并且挑选一些你想要学习的类别。就餐、问路、使用公共交通以及通过海关的导览通常是你想要提高你的语言能力的最重要的范围。如果你没有很多的时间，则通过学习短语例如"Do you speak English?（你会讲英语吗？）"来不把时间浪费掉。

    从每个类别制作词汇表，放入成堆的抽认卡之中。在这时，你必须学会的数量可能看起来有些吓人，但是马上你就会发现，通过将其分割开来，你会很快学会并且保留住这些词汇。从选择一个类别开始，洗洗这些卡片，并且抽出大约 5 张卡片来过一过。开始先学习认识外来词，按英语的翻译考问自己。在你走过这些步之后，将卡片翻过来，并且再次通过它们。遵照这样的模式，永远困在你手上的卡片可能会越少。一旦你觉得你很好理解了这 5 张卡片，就把它们搁在一边并且抓取另外 5 张卡片。重复这个同样的过程，然后将新的 5 张卡片添加你放在一边的那堆之中，洗卡片，并且它们全部通过。坚持这样做，直到你征服整堆的卡片。随着你的进步，你会不断增强对这些词的记忆，让人感觉你不可能忘掉它们。

    你的语言学习的一个较小部分应该是致力掌握一些基本的语法。如果你在上大学时学习过语言，这可能是你的工作的主要部分。然而，令人欣慰的是，你几乎不需要对它那么担心，因为你需要的只是建立基本的沟通技巧。语言因它们语法的复杂性而显着变化，这意味着某些内容会比其他的内容难学得多。但是，你必须确保你知道一些基本的语序。在英语中，一个句子的主语（主题）在动词之前，而宾语（对象）在动词之后。如果我说："I kicked the ball（我踢球）", "I（我）"是主语， kicked （踢了）（或"to kick（踢）"）是动词， the ball（球）是宾语。尽管一些语言所作的是一些对于这个顺序有趣的事情。日语是主语-宾语-动词，这意味着动作来到了句子的最末端。而斯拉夫语言，例如俄语，则完全没有任何固定的顺序，这使得事情大大复杂化。在不带语序的语言中，名词必须根据它们在句子里的功能变化。这被称为语法上的格，而且尽管它是学习这种语言的很大的一部分，它也不是有心让你发晕。因为这个原因，你大概可以暂时忽略它。

    像语法一样，对于不同的语言，书写也是非常困难的工作。例如，汉语具有相当简单的语法，这可能是一个解脱。但是，它的书面语言使用数千个不同的字，每一个字代表一个词或者一个词的一部分。要熟记许多这样的字是一项你必须自己作出决定你是否想要承担的任务。然而，如果你正在学习一种使用拉丁字母表的语言，你实在应该努力学会如何发音每个字母。通常，字母的发音不同于该字母在英语中的发音，它们通常都只有一个声音。英语在这里是古怪的，我们有 5 个元音字母以及大约 12 个元音。西班牙语、捷克语、德语等…则一致得多，这意味着它们的字母表使得该语言学起来更容易。当然，外边还有许多其它的系统。阿拉伯语和希伯来语一般只写辅音，日语有每个音节所用的符号（总共大约 50 个）,加上代表单词的特殊日本汉字。但是请记住，你在这里的任务只是要学习到足以读取街面的标志和超市的标签即可。

    如果你在旅行之前已经努力掌握了一些语言，你在你的目的地会得到更好地接待。每个地方的当地人都喜欢知道你作出了努力去讲一些他们的语言。最重要的是，学习一种新的语言能以一种没有别的东西能够做到的方式来扩展你的头脑。你绝不知道你获得的知识在什么时候可以派上用场。