Know how y'all feel! Communication is the mechanism of understanding: language, visual, etc.
In college I took Spanish and French. Also did some self-study in Italian and Japanese. NOW...I can read and write a very little Spanish...understand a very few words in French (written). HEARING UNDERSTANDING was always problematic.
Of the languages I've looked at, English and French are probably the most inconsistent languages around (excusing the Scandanavian, Russian, German, etc., ones I know nothing about). Spanish, Italian, Portugese, and Japanese all have very strong phonetic sounds, such as: A,E,I,O,U, ma, ka, sa, ta, etc. Spanish seems to follow some rather precise rules. English and French...help! Japanese has 2 forms: "characters" and the "ka-ta-ka-na" alphabet. If you can correctly pronounce Spanish words, you can pronounce Japanese Katakana (but, Japanese does not have an "L" in the language). In some languages (e.g., Japanese, I think) the "context" in which something is said may change the "meaning" of the word or phrase. [In any event I'm glad I grew up in an English speaking family, otherwise I don't think I could EVER learn English...LOL!]
IMO if one knows the basic vowel, dipthong, tripthong and ~ pronunciations, you can read and speak Spanish (whether or not you're understanding anything or not). Italian has a few novelty sounds too and syllable divisions.
The "self-study" tapes and videos probably work (e.g., Rosetta Stone, etc.); however, one must be very dedicated and they are nothing like 1:1 interaction attempts or some instruction. But, one needs to learn the "rules" of grammer, including verb conjugation, nouns and pronouns. Lest not forget the many "variations" of any language: regionally, formal vs. casual, etc.
My naive advice:
Learn the "basic" pronounciations, most commonly used verbs, characteristic nouns associated with everyday living and work environment, pronouns, and a few short phrases of importance. Just be sure to pronounce all correctly and use the proper verb tenses. If you have trouble "understanding" what someone says, at least have written and reading knowledge so you can read/write your stuff even if you can't understand verbal interactions.