It's gotta come from the heart! Learning a foreign language

The most essential part of learning another language is practicing the language every chance you get.

If you have too much pride and you just can't bring yourself to take the risk of potentially making a fool out of yourself every time you practice, you're never going to be able to progress in the language.

Being willing to take the risk of figuratively getting your head chopped off every time you dare practice is an essential part of going from being able to say only a few words in any language, to being able to have a normal conversation in it.

If you see a bunch of tourists lost in SF, for example, obviously speaking Spanish (or any another language you're practicing) , but you don't approach them to practice, you've just wasted a prime opportunity.

If the phone prompts give you the opportunity to pick Spanish vs English, and you don't pick Spanish, another opportunity lost.

There are tons of such options available to you, the real question is whether or not you want to speak that language badly enough to take advantage of them.

Will it be embarrassing, hell yes it will be embarrassing, but if speaking that language is what your goal is, there's unfortunately no other way around it, you've got to practice the language every chance you get.

Will people think you're showing off, possibly, but you can't afford to worry about that, especially when in a few years time from now you'll be fluent in the language and they'll be wishing they had done the same.

Again, if you're too afraid of people thinking you're showing off, you're too afraid to learn another language. You have to accept the fact that that might happen and come to peace with it.

If you're doing it for the money though, forget it, because learning another language is way too hard and if that's all you have invested in it, $$$ signs, once you realize how hard it is (not to learn it necessarily, but to maintain it) you're likely to give up very quickly.

It's gotta come from the heart, and nowhere else!