What are guerilla language tactics?

Most beginning language books are very timid and orderly, whether they're tourist phrase books or high school texts. Hi, my name is X. How are you? Hello, goodbye. I am an American. I speak English. Even at an intermediate level, there's no question of reading interesting native-level materials until you've memorized a dozen verb conjugations.

I was a little naive when I first started learning Japanese, under the impression that I could muddle through with a comic book, a dictionary, and a grammar book. I may have been naive, but I turned out to be right. Luckily for me, Japanese isn't a language where the words inflect very much; there's a single past tense form, a single nonpast form, and exactly two irregular verbs.

I did well with Japanese, and my language learning tactics come from those experiences. Take on the language on its own turf, moving straight to native materials even when they're above your head. Don't worry about mastering picayune points of grammar first. Be aggressive, be bold. Find something you're passionate about and use that to learn. Don't think you have to be satisfied reading out dialogues about people talking cheerfully about their vacation plans.