I heard a suggestion once-- from Andrew Pudewa I think-- that a great way to get a leg up on the language you're trying to learn, is to memorize a children's audiobook in the target language, so that you can recite it, with inflection, from memory. He did it with a Japanese version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and said it catapulted him forward in speaking fluency, and just general confidence in the language, enough to try talking to people in it. And as a fallback, he could always tell kids the story of Jack...

I keep meaning to do it, and keep not getting around to it (shame!).