I challenged myself to go through Russian toddler/young-children
   readers and things. Mostly old soviety stuff from the 60s but it
   was enough to help. One of the most helpful things I found was
   from a controversial idea from an Israeli linguist from the 90s
   - I don't remember his name and I don't know if he's still
   around, but he had a brilliantly simple notion: Learn the
   infinitive form of the verbs. Learn as much body language/hand
   gesture language. Do a lot of pointing. and that's pretty much
   it. He advised that we spend a lot of time trying to "speak like
   a native" when we should do the opposite: accept that we're a
   foreigner, know that good-natured native speakers will be
   forgiving of your non-nativeness (which will be obvious even
   YEARS into trying to master fluency), and help you along.
   controversial idea - goes against everything we're instructed.
   But it's exactly what people thrust into cultures have to do
   _anyway_ === What ultimately stopped me in learning Russian was:
   a) moving to Florida instead of going to the monastery. b)
   losing interest in the church / religion thing c) (and #1
   really): I don't have much to say to people in my NATIVE
   language, so WHY would I have _more to say_ in another language?
   :)