Most of us know of Duolingo by now, and I find people have mixed opinions about it. For anyone who has taught themselves a language as an adult, I think it's obvious that it is a brilliant tool for becoming conversational but needs a bit of supplementary work in order to be effective.
My studies consist of Duolingo for 20-60 minutes a day, blogging in my target language (currently Indonesian), and making word lists and then using those words in comments and conversations in order to practice. If I wanted to put twice as much effort in and learn 3-4x faster I'd get a tutor and I think I could be fluent in any language in 2-3 months. I'm not especially good at learning languages though, this is just a great formula that works.
I use duolingo primarily to get a list of useful words and to practice them in a drill situation. By itself it doesn't still. But then when I go back and check my word lists and then I try to write using those words, it all sticks very well. I recommend it for everyone.
When my list is pretty long and I feel I know less than half, I will slow down on the duolingo and do mostly review and do more writing and talking to practice using the words. I write my "Crazy Diary" as you may have seen. Once I know pronouns, lots of verbs and adjectives and a few functional words like but, and, because, Who/what/when/where/why/how, I can already have a conversation. So I will try and get these words under my belt as quickly as I can!
Now that I learned pronouns and simple verb sentence structure (very simple), I currently have a long list of verbs and another list of adjectives and I will be checking them off as I learn them.
I encourage anyone to follow this study plan and post their bilingual blogs in the Hive Cross Culture community like I am. You can find people to practice chatting with in our discord channel (links below)
Here are my lists for Indonesia for my first two weeks.
Verbs
mengambil to take
mengajar to teach
mengingat to remember
mengerti to understand ##
mengubah to change
mengganggu to disturb
menggambar to draw
menghilang to disappear
menghadap to face
menyapa to greet
menyentuh to touch
menyapu to sweep
menyewa to rent
menyimpan to save
melihat to look
meminta to ask
melempar to throw
muncul to appear
pulang to return
Adjectives
baru, tua new/old
kecil, besar small/big
panjang, pendek long/short
murah, mahal cheap/expensive
terang, gelap bright/dark
telat, pagi late/early
menarik, membosan interesting/boring
kuat, lemah strong/weak
betul, salah right/wrong
bersih, kotor clean/dirty
kering, basah dry/wet
mudah, sulit easy/difficult
lambat, cepat slow/fast
setempat, asing local/foreign
bising, tenang noisy/calm
gemuk, kurus fat/thin
sedih, senang sad/happy
kaya, miskin rich/poor
cerdas,bodoh smart/stupid
indah,jelek beautiful/ugly
tinggi,pendek tall/short
Dekat/juah close/far
Muda young
Jelas clear
Rusak broken
Biasa nromal
Sempurna perfect
Penuh full
Lain different
Bahagia happy
Mirip similar
(still editing the last, I'll add more later!)