I frequent this forum called how-to-learn-any-language. There's a nice sized community of people that try different techniques and what not, and one of the most popular things people there like to use is a method called "Listening-Reading". It builds all of your language skills simultaneously, and it's effective. I haven't done it long enough to see these kind of results yet, but according to other users, after you've done it for a few weeks (totaling 30+ hours) you start seeing really large improvements. Apparently it takes beginners to intermediate levels, people at the intermediate level to the advanced level, and advanced speakers to fluency.

You need audio in the target language (ie. an audiobook, or a shitload of recorded articles, perhaps), a written version in the target language, identical to the audio, and a written version in your native language, which should be a decent translation (it doesn't have to be perfect though).

Acquiring those resources it's the biggest obstacle, though for most languages they are readily available.

The method:
Read a segment of the version in your native language and internalize it. Then play the audio while scanning the target-language version with your eyes. Your goal should be to seperate and identify each word as you are listening. Do this two or three times if needed. Next, go back to the translation and replay the segment while reading the translation. Do this several times, as it's important in learning the new words.

Next, you're going to go back to the target-language version and try to shadow the speaker (ie. imitate his/her pronunciation). You should also refer to the translation if there are some words that are still meaningless for you.

Once you are finished with a segment, you should know it to the point where you could translate it into English and vice-versa. I'd recommend that you already know the target-language's phonetics and basic grammar before starting this, though apparently it does work for people that have absolutely no knowledge of their target language.

Also note that based on your level, it will take a long time to get through whatever you're reading. Your goal is to internalize the text and audio, so...slowly getting through the book/article isn't a problem. I should also point out that you are NOT trying to actively memorize anything. Your goals are to understand the segment in the target-language in both written and spoken form, and to be able to repeat the segment yourself. Fortunately, the end-result is some level of memorization (but passive, not active).

I've been doing this for Russian recently...I'm at an intermediate level feor the most part (by my uni's standards anyways), but I want to get passive comprehension of spoken Russian, and I want to improve my vocabulary. I have definitely noticed improved vocab, though I haven't done this for nearly long enough to see the gains in listening comprehension. I'll update you guys in May as to how I've progressed. For reference, as of now I listen to radio shows and don't understand the topic at all, and I can watch movies and have a basic idea of what is being said. My hope is that within several weeks I'll be able to reasonably follow a radio show or news report.

Let me know what you think. Skepticism is not welcome unless you've tried the method.

And if you want to give it a try, I'm currently using Russian articles on this site, and after I'm going to read through Master & Margarita: http://www.russianlessons.net/articles/index.php

I'd be interested in hearing more abuot how this works for complete beginners in a language.

Nice guide.

Damn, that sounds like it could help a lot, I want to try that out.

Thanks for the post.

I've never heard of the forum you mentioned, but I'm assuming it would be too much to hope that they already have some materials using this technique gathered for any languages on there?

Update:

I started doing a different method, and I think it's more effective and more fun. The basic idea is that you have text and audio in the target language. You go through the text with a dictionary (a reliable computer translator/electronic dictionary can make things faster) until you have full comprehension. Because everything is in context, it's very easy to remember the new words when you re-read or listen to the text.

So, from here you simply listen to the text several times, allowing yourself to become very comfortable with the text and all of the new vocabulary. You may need to pause and repeat various portions the first time, but after you've listened about 3 or 4 times, you should find that you can listen to and comprehend the text very well, almost as though you were fluent in the language.

At this point, your new vocabulary will be very passive. You'll be able to recognize new words in the context of the text, but you likely won't be able to use them independently. Now your goal is to internalize and master the new words. Do this in whatever way you like. I find that writing them down, using them in sentences, and defining them in the target language are effective. The amount of time this takes will depend on how many new words there are, and how long the audio/text is. I had a 30-minute podcast and had to break it down into 2 to 3 minute segments.

Why is this so good?

1) The fact that you quickly get full comprehension of the spoken text means that you don't have to rely on the written language. Learning in an audio format greatly helps your listening comprehension; often people rely way too much on written materials.

2) Although you do have to actively internalize the new words at some point, you basically prime yourself by doing the repeat-listenings. As a result, when you do want to master some new vocabulary from the article, you already are familiar and comfortable with the words, without having used much energy.

3) Lastly, review is as simple as listening to the text again.

EDIT: Oh, and another good thing is that all you need is audio and text in one language, as opposed to needing an accurate translation as well.

Ive tried a similar method when learning Italian.

I think it does really work wonders as it increase your vocab, helps with pronunciation and I felt it the most helpful when trying to seperate words whilst listening.

What language(s) are you trying to learn?

With the 2nd method, you mean? I'm using it for Russian with www.tasteofrussian.com podcasts. What sources did/do you use with Italian?

If you've got the balls, try singing and reading too, hehe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdvbE7l5XCg I understand most of that song without even studying italian thanks to the similarities with other romance language. As far as I've studied, singing helps with memory retention better than flashcards and whatnot. I specifically remember in my french class learning irregular verbs like tombé, mort, né, allé with a certain jingle.

Yeah, songs are great too. The content tends to be pretty haphazard, but they're useful (and if the song is good...even better).