Best study method / best tip / round-up 2014

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The year is coming to a close. What has been your most effective study method? What has given you the highest return on investment? What method will you keep on using in 2015?

For me, I read a lot of Russian during the 90-day challenge in the spring. After summer, I have mainly talked with my Skypies. I have used my skype-log and written down all the words my friends have helped me with after each session, and I occasionally review them. Also, I have done some Scriptorium exercises (sensu professor Arguelles). I find that quite useful.

I have become a bigger believer in the necessity of doing something physical as a part of the study process. Therefore, speaking, reading out loud, writing notes by hand, doing scriptorium, I think are good methods for me. LingQ is also important to me, but I need to find a more “physical way” to use it.

For French, I have been reading and listening to texts on LingQ and other sources offering authentic French. And I have been speaking with my French skypie. I also make notes in French, but not as much as in Russian. I also find French documentaries on various subjects on Youtube useful.

For German, I have really enjoyed listening to Deutschland Funk and to the podcasts of Fasulye and Evgjenij, and also my weekly skype calls. For Dutch I have only read using LingQ and I have listened to Fasulye’s podcast.

For 2015, I will start with a massive boost for my Russian. Planning on lessons and skypie-calls every day for 90 days. Also, I will resume my writing, as it is a physical process. For French, I will continue to prepare to our moving to Quebec. The last half of the year I will be surrounded by French every day, and that will hopefully give me a boost as well. German and Dutch are at OK activity levels, and I will continue as I have done.

Happy new year and good luck!

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A very interesting summary of all your 2014 language learning activities! :slight_smile: Keeping up with 3 foreign languages is quite an achievement! You have a good mixture of using different methods training different skills. I am also a very frequent user of Skype language exchanges, but as well I enjoy taking language classes (2014 + 2015 > English and Norwegian conversation courses) and love the study of textbooks and workbooks as well as writing little essays or dialogues in my target languages Danish and Norwegian. And I have to do some vocabulary learning regularly. LingQ is more my place of doing voluntary work as a podcast co-producer and corrector of the texts we use for our podcasts.

All the best for your next language learning year 2015!

Fasulye

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I forgot to mention that on the italki - website I corrected 55 small Esperanto - essays in 2014! I want to continue my Esperanto - correction activities in 2015 as well. I love correcting two of my foreign languages - Dutch and Esperanto - but for Dutch there is too much competition on italki, therefore I focus on Esperanto.

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I’m new to LingQ. This post is a good reminder of goals I can set for 2015. This is good reminder to set making finding some Skype buddies a goal fairly early in 2015.

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Nice post - thanks for sharing.

I joined LingQ in October of 2013, so most of my usage happened in 2014. I really like the method and the philosophy of putting listening and reading at the center of the language learning strategy works well for me. In the last 14 months I have made tremendous progress in both Spanish and French. I don’t study both languages at the same time, but rather switch languages every 2-3 months. Besides listening and reading to content that interests me (at least 80% of my language activity time), I practice reading aloud, and take conversational classes over skype.

My LingQ usage was heavier in the first half of the year, when I was building a lot of vocabulary. I did the 90-day challenge starting in January working on my French, and as an intermediate student was able to reach around 10K words in 3 months. Then once I moved closer to the advanced level, I’ve seen my focus moving towards listening to real podcasts/radio, and reading magazines and newspapers.

I found it worth to search and pay for material when needed (podcasts, audiobooks, etc.), and made some purchases in both Spanish and French. Some of them I’ve imported into LingQ as private lessons, others not. For instance, right now I am working with Assimil Using French (advanced/C1 level).

My 2015 goals are to reach a good level of fluency in French, maintain my Spanish, and potentially start on a new language (probably either German or Mandarin).

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Congratulations, @snorrews, and thank you for sharing your experience! For me, reading and listening to audiobooks, and listening to a variety of podcasts have been my mainly means of learning English. Today, I do these activities on an everyday basis. Of course writing and speaking haven’t been neglected, but I can’t pretend that I have done enough of these. I think that 2015 will be quite similar to 2014. If I manage to do so, 2015 will be a good year as well, in term of learning English. Meilleurs voeux et bonne chance à vous!