usually they are exactly the same. you can set off to do something or set out to do something, not a real difference.

to be decked out is to be decorated or dressed up. usually it doesn't refer to normal clothing, but special or glamorous. "She was decked out in the latest fashions." "The house was decked out in Christmas lights."

Try changing the order. .I'll be there to pick you up right away. OR I'll be there to pick you up in a minute. and so on. However, it would be more natural to not restate the question and just say, "Yes, I'll be there right away/in a minute/soon.

a lot of people keep a kind of video diary on youtube. Just set up a camera and talk about what you did today. You don't even have to post it if you don't want to, as long as you are doing it and are getting practice. Talking to people will help too.

to improve you reading and writing, there's not much to do but read and write. Find a book, and start reading. Look up words you don't know. Same for writing.

FIRST LEARN THE ALPHABET. don't try anything else before you know how to pronounce all the letters correctly and can read. make sure you kow what accents are and how they change pronunciation as well. if you can, find audio files so when you read the word you know you are pronouncing it correctly. something that will also help a lot is watching TV. find movies or shows you enjoy in Spanish and get used to listening to the language. a lot of people don't realize how important it is to hear large amounts of a language before even learning it, but by doing this you'll be able to pick up the rhythm and pronunciation of the language. before this point, your brain just has trouble processing that these sounds mean something. you'll also pick up vocabulary as you go. learn basic vocabulary and grammar at the same time. each one is kind of useless without the other.

there really is never a winner or loser, it just keeps going until everyone gets too tired to run anymore lol

Use academic English when talking to teachers, in a business setting, or when writing an essay. Use slang when talking to friends. You can use academic English when talking to friends, but if you talk too formally you might sound weird. If you google a word and an urban dictionary definition shows up, it's slang. Other than that, you will just have to learn the difference. And you can always ask online here, of course.