When I first tried learning Japanese, I did it all wrong. I bought the beginner textbooks, learned Hiragana and Katakana, and took an intensive course at my university. I repeatedly wrote down new vocabulary and grammar concepts, and made flash cards that helped me learn nothing. On a test, I might be able to struggle through based off pure memorization - maybe. But actually talking to a Japanese person was harder than climbing a mountain with one footstep.

Now I'm learning Korean, and I've gotten way better at it in the past year (10 months actually) than I ever did in my 3 years of "studying" Japanese. Here are my tips:

1. Motivation. Some people say they like learning a language because they like different cultures, others say they just enjoy language learning in general. But it doesn't matter what reason you have, in my opinion. At the end of a long and tiring day, that reason will not keep you going. What you need is to decide that you are just going to do it. Practice a lot. Resolve to do something every single day. Make it a habit. Your resolve is your greatest ally.

2. Focus on listening skills above all else. You need to expose yourself to the sound of your target language, way more than you think you do. Find a 5 minute audio clip you find interesting and listen to it every day. Trust me, it will help. Don't worry about understanding it - just listen to the sounds of the words until you can repeat the whole thing off by heart.

3. Shadow. This means, take that five minute clip you're listening to, and after you're a bit familiar with it, start repeating what you hear as best you can. Don't worry about getting it right.

4. Don't focus on getting better, because that will take a long time, but focus on growing. :) 

5. Use Anki (flash card app/website) for learning new vocabulary and save yourself a ton of time.