The problem with phrasebooks and structured courses is that they are made for the average person.
You are not an average person.
Neither am I. Neither is anyone. If you restrict yourself to learning from a phrasebook, you will be left overloaded with hundreds of words you don't need, and you will still be lacking 80% of the words you DO need.
When you're studying, don't be afraid to skip what isn't useful to you.
When my polyglot friend, Joseph, was taking Chinese classes in college, he made the decision not to learn about 30% of the words in every lesson, because he never foresaw himself using those words (like "curtain") in real life. Joseph's test scores suffered a bit (don't worry, he still passed in the upper half of his class), but his ability to use Chinese skyrocketed. He was making better use of his time and focusing on what he needed to know for his life.
To make fast progress, you need to become an independent, dynamic language learner. Definitely use phrasebooks, but supplement them with whatever is missing for you. Early on, you'll need to create you-specific vocabulary. No phrasebook or course can do that for you.
You need to start by learning words that you are most likely to say and need during your first few conversations. Language courses will start off by teaching you how to say "book," "girl," and "pen." But these are NOT words you'll ever need during your first few chats!
Here's an example. When I meet someone, I usually tell them that my name is Benny, that I'm from Ireland, and that I'm a blogger living out of my backpack.
Note that the words Ireland, blogger, and backpack are all not likely to be in a phrasebook or taught early on in a course, but these are the first words I'll ever need to talk to someone in the language.
See what I mean? Now here's what this means for you.
You need to ask yourself, what are my me-specific words? These are the words you should include in your script.
Here's your mission for today:
1) Choose five words that best describe you. These could be:
Your nationality
Your job
Your hobbies
Family details (e.g. if you're married you might choose the word "wife" or "husband")
Write them down now, in English.
2) Translate the words. Need help? Here are all my favourite online language dictionaries
3) Add the words to your script. Don't worry about full sentences for now (more on that tomorrow!)
4) Practice speaking them aloud.
Don't forget to save your script!
With just a few words, you can already introduce yourself.
Read more about how I use phrasebooks in my language learning
Tomorrow, you'll learn one of the mindset shifts you must take to be a language hacker.
Keep practicing!
Until then,