If you live in the UK then part of the curriculum is learning a foreign language. In fact when I was at school I had to learn not one, but two languages simultaneously, yet 10 years on (or in fact about 6 months after leaving school) then I can barely remember one word of them and have never used what I learnt in any way. So that begs the question, ‘what is the point?’.
You need to work hard if you want to learn a language, you can’t just jump in with a cheap learn German DVD that you bought for 10 bucks and learn a few basic phrases and objects, you won’t get a chance to use them even if you are on holiday. Or even worse, if there is a phrase you can learn on the DVD, like ‘Please tell me where I can buy food’ or something along those lines, then the person you are speaking to might assume you can understand them and try speaking to you in their language!
If you want to learn to speak the language, either because you go on holiday there every year or you want to move there etc, then you really need to do a course of lessons in your own time and learn it for a year or so. It will take a lot longer than that to become fluent in the language, but you will be able to hold a basic conversation with someone and know a lot of useful phrases and words to help you out too. If you just want to speak a little bit of the language on holiday then it is probably better for you to get a phrasebook instead which you can look in anytime you want to ask for something.
