Claude Cartaginese is editor of The Polyglot Project, an eBook, freely available online consisting of 48 accounts from a range of individuals about how they learned (and didn't learn) one, two or more languages. Even several polyglots.
Each wrote from just a few paragraphs tens of pages (over 100 in one case, the final entry by David James).
For me, the book is a goldmine. It was my starting point for figuring out how languages may best be learned best. It is filled with clues that pertain to language acquisition. I'd recommend the book to anyone thinking about learning another language. It is bound to save you hundreds of hours.
The first thing that struck me was that almost contributor was initially put off by schooling and grammar. It didn't help them. All but about two or three sucked at school - or at least they failed at foreign languages. It was only afterwards, on their own, using methods that they discovered through trial and error, that they began to succeed.
