Learning the alphabet is key for me. That opens up more native-langauge resources, for one. If you happen to be in a country where the language is used, you have instant Always-On practice. I've learned languages using Cyrillic, RtL, Chinese characters, and and will be tackling Thai soon. Interestingly, it's been a challenge to find resources to learn the Thai alphabet. Another thing I've found is that the dialogues in language books rarely actually happen that same way, but tend to be truncated and shortened. So that's why getting out there among a populace is essential.