LEARN WORDS, NOT RULES.
Learn to convey your meaning as quickly as possible by using flashcard based software that teaches the most useful travel vocabulary via the spacing effect; a principle that says people better remember information learned over several short sessions.
This is not a dictionary program. This is not a phrase book. The last thing you want is to go to a foreign country with five memorized phrases. And you certainly don’t want to be the idiot in the restaurant flipping through a dictionary while the waiter stands there waiting. What you do want to do is memorize a few hundred keys words you can mix and match.
When you are done with this software you will not be fluent. You will be able to walk up to anyone on the street and convey your meaning, and isn’t that the point?
[Hint: If you think the purpose of learning a foreign language is to sit alone in a room and study grammar, this isn’t the language program for you. Just move along now. Really, we won’t be mad. It’s not you, it’s me. We can still be friends. I’ll call you…]