Your Language Learning Strategy...In 50 Words or so

[lavengro]

Get super-excited about new target language; gather resources; make a plan; stick to plan and study earnestly for not more than two weeks; begin tapering off; abandon project entirely in despair; spend time chastising unworthy self for failing at yet another language; pick new language and repeat. Forty-nine words.

[Iversen]

I have probably already written an answer, but here is my latest attempt at being brief:

step 1 (intensive study):
Study bilingual texts (i.e. copy and try to understand everything in them)
Compare grammars and write a concise synopsis (= green sheets)
Do three-column wordlists based on study texts or dictionaries

step 2 (extensive study):
force yourself to think in the target language
find a way to read and/or listen so much that your head starts to buzz
buy train or flight tickets to a place where your target language is spoken and use it

sorry, this was one hundred words...

[Relio]

When I am serious and have lots of time:
study tons of vocabulary, study grammar in depth, use multiple resources, learn phrasebooks by heart, study textbooks, and when I am comfortable start exposure to lots real materials

When I am not so serious, or simply don't have time:
focus on input, prefer books based on natural method... when doing like that the primary goal is to be able to understand the language (focus on reading and listening) and content in it, rather than to speak or write... (still there is a hope that eventually speaking and writing will also become natural)

[Yunus39]

Method 1: (living languages, among native speakers) Work through comprehensible input with a native speaker in the target language from simple words with pictures, to discussing the content of television shows, speeches, and audio books. Focus on listening and speaking intensely for the first 1000 hours. Later supplement with reading and vocab work.

Method 2: (dead languages, not among native speakers) Spend many hours with lexical chunks in writing and audio. Work through progressively bigger and more difficult lexical chunks with translation. Work through word-frequency lists in Anki. Do extensive reading and the L-R method/bilingual texts as able.

[leosmith]

speaking intensely

What is that?

[Yunus39]

speaking intensely

What is that?

Focus on listening and speaking intensely for the first 1000 hours.

I meant "Focus intensely on listening and speaking for the first 1000 hours."

[Erisnimi]

Before anything else, I want to familiarise myself with the sounds, orthography and syntax of the language. I need to know what a sentence looks and sounds like. It's fairly technical work at first, next augmented through much exposure. Familiarity I think is the key, and with something foreign, you have to work on building familiarity. And then you might start to understand, if you have the tenacity, interest and curiosity of the mind.