Hello, Robbie: This link will provide the best free resources to start learning Spanish from levels A1, A2 to more advanced levels B1 and B2. Please, check them out because it has everything you need to start learning Spanish: ☛ http://eoilacorunaenespanol.blogspot.com.es/2011/10/espanol-para-principiantes.html I sincerely hope this helps, Robbie. All the best!

In my opinion, it is good to have some basic phrases at first like "My name is…", "Thanks", or "Hello" and then try to speak the most common expressions to fill in the gaps while you are thinking for your next sentence like "Great!" or "I agree". And when the conversation is going fine, of course you have to have a topic to discuss. I think you should be only remembering words that are related to the topic you want to be talked about like in my case which is geography. Learning how to ask will also help you to have a command of that language.

I am in the same position. My passive vocabularies growing while my active one still limited . I understand the people when they were speaking slowly but it is hard for me to speak Spanish . I forgot all what I wanted to say. I guess by practicing this problem will be minimized.

Well, you can use cognados (words than are similar in Spanish and English), here you have a big list: http://blogpara-aprenderingles.blogspot.com/2012/12/cognados-en-ingles.html