Thanks for the in depth response. ¡Muchas gracias!
I do try to find listening content “at my level” but the little I can find is incredibly boring. I suffer through what I can. Children’s shows have appropriate vocabulary, but almost always use unnatural voices (and a lot of noise). That said, I’ve been doing it anyway because I’d been told “it was the best way to learn”. But, no, I don’t listen to “hours of unintelligible speaking”. That’s just one part of my study (typically while driving to/from work). Most of my audio listening is YouTube tutorials (Español con Maria, Español con Juan, FluentU, WhyNotSpanish, Español Automático, SpanishPod101, etc.)
I always read aloud. I repeat when I can. With audio, generally, if I don’t get it the first time, I never do until reading it.
While single word flashcards aren’t efficient, they’re pretty much the only thing that actually works! Slow is better than not at all. Learning a phrase is more or less useless if I don’t understand the words.
Regarding LingQ’s “lots of mistakes” or “differences were not reflected” (my point regarding caminar): Yes. Unfortunately, not something I discovered immediately. Now, I take the time to look up nearly every word independently. Definitely a weakness, imo, of LingQ.
That said, I’m subscribed here (and nowhere else) because of the ability to download stuff I’m actually interested in. A FANTASTIC feature. However, I don’t think my vocabulary is expanding (much), but what I do know is being reinforced. I use other (free) services to work on expanding vocabulary (SpanishDict is my favorite).
I listen to lot’s of advice. I try to follow it, for a while anyway, until I’m confident “it ain’t working for me”.