I felt a sense of achievement when...

[Bluepaint]

The news is miserable and the days here in the Northern hemisphere are cold and wet so let's start a cheerful thread!

The first time I noticeably benefitted from learning some French was during one of Paris' many strikes. Mindlessly staring out the window of the train, the tannoy crackled into life. I didn't catch every single word but I managed to understand that the next couple of stops were to be missed due to security issues and that I would end up far beyond my destination. Naturally I got off the train so I didn't ride for goodness knows how long to goodness knows where. A win for my French. Definitely a small but tangible achievement in my eyes.

(Unfortunately, they did not advise us by getting off at the stop immediately prior to the ones being skipped meant that I would end up in streets devoid of people. Still, I enjoyed the unexpected peace in this busy city until the restaurant I dined in boarded its windows and chucked me out (with my arm-sized éclair however). I had to ask gendarmes and local police where the heck I was. Turns out I can read maps better than gendarmes After also speaking to a local I found a metro and hopped on shortly before a huge number of angry demonstrators appeared.)

So, my French is still crap but I plug on because of little moments like that day on the train.

When have you had moments of feeling like you've really made progress? It can be as minor as you like!

[Stelle]

I started learning Spanish because I was walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain with my Dad. During our walk, we ended up in an old church with about 15 other people, all of whom could speak one of English, French and Spanish - but not two, creating the potential for smaller clusters of people who couldn't communicate with one another. I became the de facto interpreter while we went around the circle sharing why we doing the walk. Each person spoke in one of the three languages, and then I repeated their stories (as well as I could) in the other two. The sense of unity and communion (in a spiritual sense, not a religious sense) was powerful. It was a pretty amazing experience, and it solidified my passion for words and language.

[solanderdog]

This reminded me of something that happened to me while driving from Québec City to Montréal last year. I had pulled into a gas station and was filling up my rental car when suddenly there was this old French guy shouting something at me I couldn't understand at all. My first response was a panicked "Desolé, je suis anglais" but he kept coming at me with more French, none of which I could understand. Anyway, once I calmed down and realized there was no easy way out of the situation, I started understanding him enough to realize that he was concerned that I was filling up the Volkswagen with regular gas, not diesel. So, I explained to him, in truly horrible French, that the car didn't have a diesel engine. It felt awful at the time, but I was pretty elated afterwards that I'd managed to succeed ... even if it wasn't a pretty win.

[tiia]

Back in 2009 I went to a concert in Finland. I could get some parts of the announcements one of the two bands made. Though I didn't understand everything, I could figure out that they were going to play the next song in the dark, as the light technician* was having his birthday. And they really didn't use any lights during the next song.
The second band's announcements were pretty much incomprehensible though.

*I don't think I really got who was having the birthday, but that was the most obvious choice.

[aokoye]

I had a running list of these this summer, some of which probably made it onto my long. That said the one that sticks out the most was that I was able to go through an "interesting" customs interaction that I hadn't expected in the Berlin airport totally in German.

[IronMike]

In 1989, three friends and I were crossing the street in front of our kaserne in West Berlin at close to midnight when we passed another American crossing the other way. We four had barely made it past the walking man onto the sidewalk when we heard a screech and crash sound, and turned to see the other guy flying through the air.

We all rushed to his aid. He was lying in the middle lane (of 3), not breathing, both legs broken and a skull fracture. Another motorist stopped his car and put on the flashers so no other cars would come barreling through the intersection. (The motorist that hit this guy did not stop!) My three friends went to work stabilizing this guy while I grabbed the motorist and asked him to find a phone and call an ambulance. (This, of course, was in the days prior to cell phones.) I then went to work directing cars around the accident. Before long an ambulance arrived and I worked with the paramedics, describing what happened. All of this was done in German, despite my being a lousy speaker of the language, possibly a strong B1.

I've had many minor feelings of achievement in my language learning/studying/hobbying life, but this one is the most significant and the first one to come to mind when I read Rhian's post.

Yes, the guy was able to recover, although his legs were permanently messed up after that and he had to return to the US for further medical treatment, after only being stationed in West Berlin for a sum total of 10 days.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Slightly related:
Language epiphanies

My examples there still apply:
I remember the first times I had some kind of "real" conversation in a target language (even Tarzan-speak is levelling up). For German, it was nearly ten years ago (in Germany), Spanish was during a Skype lesson (planned to be 30 minutes but it lasted one hour), Esperanto during an exam (and during an Esperanto weekend in Berlin), Irish in the Gaeltacht.

[tarvos]

I got a tour of Jinan just because I spoke Mandarin.

[Steve]

After I started using extended reading (with parallel texts) as a study method, I was reading something in ancient Greek and realized there were a few words that I knew which I had absolutely no memory of learning. Prior to that, I could usually point to what paradigm table, grammar lesson, vocabulary list, or passage or text that I had learned a word from. That was the first time I was aware of having been starting to assimilate vocabulary without actively studying or looking up a particular word.