Road to the bilingual -1

I've been struggling with the language for ages, especially since I moved into Ireland. It's been for one year since I moved in, I can find that my English is improving slowly. I hear some people saying that following someone's example is the easiest way to improve your language. In my case, it's my husband. I met a guy from Australia in Tokyo the other day, then he told me that I had a bit Irish accent. It suprised me because I didn't mean to copy him.
My husband doesn't want me to throw away my Japanese accent, but I know that I need to speak like a native sometime. I'm not descriminated with the foregin accent when I speak to people face to face, but I'm uncomfortable with their behavour to me if I talk on the phone. Sometimes, they are really rude or they just treat me like a little child.
I've taken a pronunciation lesson once which costed me furtune. I was told at that time it wouldn't work but actully it's working in a way. It just taught me logical structure of pronunciation, but I think it is worth paying for what you never have a clue about.
Since I gave it up at the half of course (because it was really dear), in fact, it doesn't work when I speak.

The accent is not the most important, I know. I met a gilr speaking brilliant english with perfect accent, but I found easily that her converstions or her presentaions were poor and I couldn't understand what her point was. She just told me that "Don't forget that you have to be logical whenever you speak."

I agree that following someone's example is the best way to learn languages and expressions. Thank to my husband, I sometimes call a bathroom jax (don't know its spelling, it's pronunced "jax") and say "big time" as "very much". He doesn't like it. But I cannot help it! He is the cloest person I can learn English from.

I would like to write my opinion about "Road to the bilingual" and work out what is the most effective way to me or to people who want to be a bilingual.