Quote Originally Posted by leslie_
I am actually at a point where I find using flash cards to be a waste of time. It seems that I cannot remember a single, lone word out of context.
I have to read, read, read... And listen. It seems that I can retain a word if I hear a word that I read somewhere else. Then, "ah-ha", I know that word...

You guys share this experience?
I'm something like that. I'm an audio learner first and formost, and secondly a kinesthetic one. So that's been making learning Russian on my own rather interesting, as I only have a textbook, a dictionary and only a vague idea of how to pronounce anything. I've taken to staking out a table in my school's library near where a group of Russian boys usually sit talking so I can study how things are pronounced, though usually, I have no idea what the heck they're talking about.