If you could do it over again, what would you change?

[roni]

With Finnish I should have started from learning basic vocabulary first and then taking Glossika or similar kind of course. Instead of that I jumped into the native medias right away believing that extensive listening would help me to assimilate the language. I literally did hundreds of hours of listening to incomprehensible talking before I gave up and decided to try something else.
For vocabulary learning I decided to use frequency list of 10000 words. I didn't go very far with this too. This list is automatically composed by parsing some Finnish news websites. Thus it is very biased. For instance, kansainvälinen - international is in first 300 words. The same as puolue - "political party" and joukkue - "sport team". Translations are also autogenerated and often a secondary meaning is used. I spent may be around 100 hours on this deck before giving up.
So, my main mistake was the assumption that I can use the same approach which I used for learning English. Basically consuming a lot of native medias and doing lightweight SRSing. Probably it would be enough for a language related to a one I already know like Swedish or Polish but in case of Finnish it was waste of time.
Focusing more on comprehensible audio input from the beginning would save me a lot of time. I would warmly recommend to start from Assimil or Glossika. Get them done ASAP and then move to native medias. My journey in Finnish already lasts for 2.5 years. This autumn I got B1 certificate but since then my verbal skills has improved dramatically. I would probably get to the same point in 1.5 years if I used right tools from the beginning.

[tractor]

I don't regret much. First of all, becuase I haven't wasted a lot of time on useless stuff. Secondly, because I think that finding out what works for you and what doesn't work for you, and what you like and what you don't like, is a necessary part of the learning process.

[Teango]

When I see all these amazing polyglots on the Internet, I feel humbled by their diligence, courage, and creative energy. However, just like falling prey to reading too many glowing Facebook profiles, I also indulge in self-recrimination from time to time. I often wonder how many languages I could have learned to a decent level myself over the last 10 years, if only I'd spent time actually learning languages rather than reading about it in blogs and forums, prising gems from arcane books and articles, and writing thousands of posts on the topic for the sheer fun of it. If only I could have been more consistent and focused; if only I had chosen a more efficient and progressive path...

But would I do things differently, given a chance to go back in time now and change everything?...100% NO! What I did over the past 10 years was what I genuinely enjoyed doing at the time, and the decisions and self-discoveries I made over this period have helped shaped me into who I am now, leading to an unpredictable and serendipitous progression of their own, and with it, so many blessings I could never have imagined.

For example, take Japanese. I initially wanted to learn some Japanese, and won a scholarship to study in Tokyo at Nihon University. In truth, I was a terrible Japanese language student, bunking off or sleeping through more classes than I care to remember - my poor senseis! I spent most of my time indulging in Japanese culture and hanging out with Japanese friends outside of class. Travelling across the whole length of the country, I visited breathtakingly beautiful, poignant, and historical places along the way, as well as futuristic multicoloured neon night landscapes that challenged all my senses. I engaged in activities ranging from crazy all-night-all-morning karaoke and clubbing with a biker gang in Shibuya, to serene tea-ceremonies and Buddhist festivals in Kyoto and Osaka. I have great memories of bathing in traditional wooden mountain-top onsen a few hours outside of Tokyo, snowboarding on the powder-soft slopes of Niseko, and studying Iaido in Naha with an eccentric long-white-bearded 10th dan Soke who looked an awful lot like the ancient kung-fu master from the movie Kill Bill. Would I exchange these experiences for completing Book 1 of Minna no Nihongo and learning a few hundred extra kanji...er...ちょっと... ^.^

And the journey doesn't end there either. When I returned to England, I found that I had radically changed too. And it's through one of my very good friends that I made in Japan that I next came to meet the two biggest loves of my life; my amazing Russian wife, and several years later, the little daughter we made together. Like a slow ceramic cooker heated by a low-Watt lightbulb, I've acquired a little more proficiency in Russian language over the years, but my experiences of travelling a bit through Russia and getting to know my beautiful, kind-hearted in-laws are what have made me feel more like an adopted Russian now (as though I stumbled out of a box of oranges from some distant land). I was interested in Russian language and culture before, that's for sure, but now my heart and dusha are positively pointed in the right direction (it's just my grammar head that's repeatedly disorientated and so often face down in the mud). Could I have predicted the connection between wanting to learn some Japanese and ending up an adopted Russian? Would I want to change things now? Конечно нет!!

And finally, it's through my unrelenting obsession for understanding how people learn languages (divergent as my energies on the subject may be), that I upped sticks and moved to the other side of the world, embarking on a totally new career that aligns more with my passions, and how I ended up enjoying poke and shave ice on the shores of Hawaiʻi. Who would have thought it! I could never have truly imagined being in this position 10 years ago, stuck in a job and place back then I really didn't enjoy, and as a big bonus, I've since learned Hawaiian on the side too! Would I change anything leading up to this...heck no!!!

TLDR; When it comes to languages and travel, je ne regrette rien! (I don't regret anything) I personally don't think it's all about the end result, or even the most efficient or effective way of getting there, but enjoying the journey.

[EverythingDeclines]

[For Japanese] Spent more time learning about the actual history (like famous authors, novels, historical events, etc) and less time on the pop culture. I've managed to fix it enough in the past few years but I don't feel like it's anywhere near adequate to what I know about Russian history/lit (and even that is still pretty small)

[Study75]

I would adopt a better study schedule. I have good discipline now, but at first my lesson times were sporadic and inconsistent. I lacked a straightforward plan. I was just winging it, honestly.