Describe the most effective thing you have done to advance your language learning

[CardiffGiant]

Has there been something that you have done in your language learning that you found particularly effective, meaning that there was noticeable improvement? It could be that it is a particular WAY of doing something, like listening to audio a certain way; changing the way you do online lessons, etc

[chove]

Extensive reading while looking up only the odd word i can't get from context. It lets me meet words and grammar "in the wild" and I can see the improvement it's made to my Spanish.

[Gustav Aschenbach]

-Intensive reading looking up every single bit I'm not 100% sure about (using LWT)
-Intensive listening (repeating/looking up things until full comprehension/taking notes)
-Extensive listening

[guyome]

Extensive reading while looking up only the odd word i can't get from context. It lets me meet words and grammar "in the wild" and I can see the improvement it's made to my Spanish.

Same here. When I started reading English, I wanted to understand everything perfectly and read with a dictionary at my side, looking up every unknown word. This was just painful and very slowgoing. I had to let go of that and accept that it was okay not to understand everything, that volume was more important than perfection.

Another thing that helped me was to accept that I might have to read simple stuff before tackling the things that really interested me. This may seem trivial but the first language I learned from scratch as an autodidact was Latin and even if I wasn't enrolled in any class and could do whatever I wanted to, I was still influenced by the "standard" approach to the Latin learning curve, meaning that you try and read masterpieces of world literature with the vocabulary and grammar of a 7-year old (if that!). Took me a long time to figure out that graded readers were a thing.

[malach]

Has there been something that you have done in your language learning that you found particularly effective, meaning that there was noticeable improvement? It could be that it is a particular WAY of doing something, like listening to audio a certain way; changing the way you do online lessons, etc

I started slow this year but have gained momentum and plan to master 1000 new Bengali words this year. I have already written out over 500 words, and gained some familiarity with them. Over the last few days, I have already noticed the benefits of this in the reading I'm doing - many 'hits' on each page from words I have just learnt. This is getting me close to knowing 50% of the words on the page, as I've focussed on a lot of verbs and adjectives.

So yes, I'm at beginner/intermediate level, but a couple of months and 500 words has made a noticeable improvement.

[tarvos]

Immersion, just forcing myself to live through that language. That's why Spanish is my best foreign language.

[dicentra8]

- Pay attention and keep applying what works for me. At least try it and see for myself. (ignore the "best/worst" opinions)
- Go through and repeat the basics (beginner stuff) as much as I need it.
- Use of monolingual dictionary (it doesn't matter if I just started learning the language). This is probably the one that had the biggest impact in understanding vocabulary. I started out of need, with japanese, and ended up realizing that it isn't so scary to use them straight away.
- Workbooks focused on listening comprehension. I started this when I had to really practise for the JLPT N3 and went through workbooks that started from the beginning. Doing those listening exercises was really helpful for my ears to get more used and familiar. I still need to finish some of them.

[Cavesa]

-extensive reading and listening. in huge amounts. But that is only efficient after a certain level
-workbooks. a high quality grammar or vocab (or other) workbook can move me forward extremely fast. The famous Progressives are a good example. For example, it is possible to get from near zero to B1 in a matter of weeks of intensive work (that means 5-6 hours a day), with all the applied skills (the famous 4) catching up extremely fast.

[nooj]

Hundreds of hours of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Not the most efficient thing, but certainly effective (if done well, comprehensible input etc).

[Kraut]

Learning with mini-stories (linear and easily visualized) that I find on Tripadvisor, translating them, memorizing and reproducing them with key-words. For repetition I do consecutive translation: listening to my German translation and translating loud back into Spanish.
This consecutive translation kind of emulates a conversation with a partner and demands high concentration.