I second reading books and watching TV programs. I'm also working on Spanish and enjoy watching Spanish-dubbed preschool-level programs (Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues, Sesame Street). I have trouble picking up on what is going on with anything too advanced. Then I get books from the library or Half-Price Books that are at a basic story level (Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, and Froggy are some of my favorites). I don't always look up the words I don't know, just absorb the stories, reading them over and over (often aloud to my children). It is always the best feeling when a word "clicks" -- like maybe I had read it in a book and then they use it on Dora and suddenly I *know* what it means, or when they use a word I thought I knew but it turns out I had been pronouncing it wrong. As I get better at the language, I can raise my level of books and video programs. Hey, it's how I learned English, and people who read a bunch tend to have better vocabularies in general. If you want to build vocabulary on a particular subject area, read books and watch shows about that subject. The more hooks you have to a word in your mind the more firmly it will be cemented in place.
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