When I started Uni, my language elective was Japanese. I changed majors, and the school I eventually transferred to didn't offer it, but wowza, non-Latin based alphabets are tough!
If you have a basic understanding of the Latin-based sentence structures, you can use that to understand a foreign language: brush up on sentence diagramming. Seriously. Subject, Verb, Object, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Prepositional Phrases, etc. Learning the culturally-accepted syntax of a language is really valuable. Once you start to recognize and understand certain words, you'll be able to see how they fit into the larger sentence structure overall.
If you have a basic understanding of the Latin-based sentence structures, you can use that to understand a foreign language: brush up on sentence diagramming. Seriously. Subject, Verb, Object, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Prepositional Phrases, etc. Learning the culturally-accepted syntax of a language is really valuable. Once you start to recognize and understand certain words, you'll be able to see how they fit into the larger sentence structure overall.