How to study BETTER as an advanced learner?

[vitormesmo_]

Hello, everyone!

This is my first topic in here, but I have been following the forum for a while. My question is exactly the title of this topic: How to study better as an advanced learner? Which could also be translated as "How to reach higher levels" or "How to past the B2/C1 levels?" or "How to reach native-like fluency?" The reason why I am posting my own thread here is that I got tired of searching about it myself. Most of the posts have lenghty discussions (which do not interest me right now, even though I do like them) or the dreaded "you cannot reach a high level without going to the country".

So, sorry if I sound rude, but no lenghty discussions and no "going to the country" advice. How would you or how have you reached a high level in a foreign language? What do you do? How do you study?

I'm looking forward to get past my B2 level in German, I've been immersing (without subtitles mostly), using monolingual dictionares and reading (books, blogs, news, quora). I am saying this because one common advice (which I do agree with) is: you have to just listen and watch lots of stuff. As I am already doing that, is there a way to do it more effeciently? Differently?

EDIT:
I think "no lenghty discussions" was a poor choice of words. So, I would like to clarify.

1. I posted this after hours (even days) of skimming through posts and forums and not being able to find what I wanted, neither to refine my search.
2. Most of the time, I came across lots of discussion (mainly about HOW LONG it takes, which I do not care right now) that didn't get to the point
3. Don't get me wrong! I love these discussions, but they were not providing the answers I needed
4. I am okay with lengthy answers. I just wanted to specify, because most of the posts about didn't have the answers I was looking for.
5. The discussion about it is interesting, but I think there are LOTS of posts dedicated to that, but few with practical advice/guides.

So, what am I looking for?

1. How-to's
2. Step by Step guides
3. What did you do to reach a high level (or another person you know)
4. How you improved your way of studying when moving from intermediate to advanced
5. How you study as an advanced learner

[Lianne]

I haven't reached an advanced level in a second language, so I'm speaking as someone who's doing intermediate level studying and who has been in this forum for a long time reading stuff that more advanced learners have written.

Sorry to repeat advice you've already heard, but I really think reading a lot and listening a lot are super important! To get more specific on that, I think once you're advanced it's important to make sure that what you're reading and listening to is challenging you. The more advanced you get the more you're gonna want to make sure you're getting a wide variety of media. E.g. reading different genres, nonfiction, news, stuff with specialised vocabulary, etc. You have to identify your weaknesses or holes in your knowledge, and then fill them. (That part's the same at every level.)

Aside from the reading and listening, you'll also need to practice speaking and writing. I don't think you need to be in the country where the language is spoken, but you may need to replace that with some sort of conversation with native speakers.

By the way, what does "no lengthy discussions" mean? That's pretty much what happens on a forum.

[smallwhite]

tldr

[lingzz_langzz]

Hey!

I can tell you from my experience that language learning actually should stopped being called language learning exactly around B2 level when you need to stop "learning it" and start "using it". Make it part of your life. Get an awesome book you'd reread, get a show because of the actor you like. Invite it to your life (doesn't have to be daily either) and you will improve, I assure you. Now, the thing is you cannot do that with like 20 languages, so we are talking about any case that's within "I'm able to make this language be part of my life and not force it instead", because in the second scenario, everyone suffers

I hope that helped!

[DaveAgain]

I'm looking forward to get past my B2 level in German, I've been immersing (without subtitles mostly), using monolingual dictionares and reading (books, blogs, news, quora). I am saying this because one common advice (which I do agree with) is: you have to just listen and watch lots of stuff. As I am already doing that, is there a way to do it more effeciently? Differently?

For German there are graded C1/C2 coursebooks you could follow.

[vitormesmo_]

You have to identify your weaknesses or holes in your knowledge, and then fill them.

That's really good advice. I've been trying to do so.

Aside from the reading and listening, you'll also need to practice speaking and writing. I don't think you need to be in the country where the language is spoken, but you may need to replace that with some sort of conversation with native speakers.

I am also talking to a native regularly, but not quite often because of time constraints.

By the way, what does "no lengthy discussions" mean? That's pretty much what happens on a forum.

Oh, I love them! But I've been reading them for hours without finding the information I wanted. What I was looking for was more practical advice on WHAT people do, to see if there is something different I could try out myself. Yeah, the WHYs are important too and I will definetly try to dig a bit more, but bear with me for now, I'm just trying to filter information.

[vitormesmo_]

Hey!

I can tell you from my experience that language learning actually should stopped being called language learning exactly around B2 level when you need to stop "learning it" and start "using it".

I hope that helped!

That's sound advice. I think I remember a video from Olly Richards that the title was something like "the day when I stopped worrying about language learning". Dealing with it less as studying sounds good. I'll definetly try at some point.

By the way, I've talked to you on Instagram (about goals and motivation), glad to see you here!

[vitormesmo_]

tldr

oh no

[gsbod]

Keep reading and listening to German as much as you can. Find opportunities to practice speaking. Take advantage of the fact that there are loads of good quality textbooks and grammar workbooks aimed at advanced learners of German. Identify your weak points and work on them.

Is that concise enough?

[iguanamon]

This is my first topic in here, but I have been following the forum for a while. My question is exactly the title of this topic: How to study better as an advanced learner? Which could also be translated as "How to reach higher levels" or "How to past the B2/C1 levels?"...So, sorry if I sound rude, but no lengthy discussions and no "going to the country" advice. How would you or how have you reached a high level in a foreign language? What do you do? How do you study?
I'm looking forward to get past my B2 level in German, I've been immersing (without subtitles mostly), using monolingual dictionares and reading (books, blogs, news, quora). I am saying this because one common advice (which I do agree with) is: you have to just listen and watch lots of stuff. As I am already doing that, is there a way to do it more effeciently? Differently?

First, Bem-vindo ao forum, vitormesmo/welcome to the forum. Now for your question, speaking for myself and what has worked for me. Yes, it is possible to reach C levels without living in a TL country. Many people here have done this. When I learned Portuguese, having a high level of Spanish already certainly helped... but as you know, Portuguese is a separate language for a reason. At the beginning I used the DLI Portuguese Basic Course, and Pimsleur Portuguese- all three levels. Atfter having completed Pimsleur Portuguese and getting up to Volume 6 of the DLI course, I hired a tutor from São Paulo who spoke no English. I was listening to, and reading the transcript for, NHK Radio Portuguese every day at the time.


My tutor got me doing exercises and communicating. I had to use Portuguese to do this. When she thought I had advanced enough, she had me watch a novela- Gabriela. It was a short novela- 79 episodes. There were no subtitles and no transcript available. I had to watch an episode, write down all unknown words and then recap the episode for her. She was familiar with the series. The first episodes were very hard. I could only get through one a week for the first several. After I got to about 25 episodes, my unknown words were much fewer and I could get through 2 episodes a week. After 50 episodes I had very few unknown words and was getting through 4 episodes a week. At the end of the series, my listening and sentence formation, my expression of thoughts were flowing naturally. Then I watched another series, a comedy "Toma lá dá cá"- again, no subtitles. I took a three week trip to Brazil and was asked how long I had lived there. During this time I was reading novels in Portuguese- I had started out with reading and listening to a radio novela from Mozambique for which I made a parallel text. I was also using my grammar book and a monolingual dictionary.

So the short answer is start with good courses, Consume lots of native material- written audio and video and delve deeply into it, speak/write with a native and challenge yourself even when it may be difficult. You don't have to go to a TL country, my visit to Brazil was a reward I gave myself and it wasn't necessary to help me learn Portuguese but it did help me with understanding the culture. When I got to visit Portugal, people asked me how long I had lived in Brazil. They knew I was not Brazilian, but I took it as a compliment.

To get to a high level in Portuguese was a lot of work. There were times when the work was hard and I didn't want to do it, but I was consistent and I persevered. Learning a language to a high level outside the country is possible but people underestimate how much work is involved in it. I could not have done it had I been studying multiple languages simultaneously... speaking just for myself. I wouldn't have had the time I needed to spend with Portuguese.

Lastly, check out this thread- Time from B2 to C1/C2? (frustrated somewhat- seeking some feedback pls). Sorry about my lengthy response, but when you post here, you don't get to choose how people respond. Hope this helps. Boa sorte!