I was spending some time trawling through blogs and came accross this very interesting article by Tim Ferris:

How to Learn Any Language in 3 Months

Time is a phenominal blogger and writer. He brings some fresh perspective and ideas to learning languages. Including the three main system components that he feels are essential for language learning:

1. Effectiveness (Priority)
2. Adherence (Interest)
3. Efficiency (Process)

Oh and while you’re there check out his other posts. Tim is a very interesting guy.