[wild_preference]

Wish I'd discovered #3 much sooner. Much easier to talk to someone you're paying. Everything else felt like I was burning the patience of the few friends I'd made.

Getting a boyfriend/girlfriend that doesn't want to speak English is probably the biggest language-learning hack.

I also wish I'd tried reading books sooner.

If you don't talk to people, you'll be able to read books in Spanish yet be useless at speaking/hearing. That was me for quite some time.

My initial problem was that I didn't come to Mexico to learn Spanish. I came to escape and work on my own projects and do my own things after burning out and quitting a job in the States. It was the eventual shame of "so how long have you lived here?" that got me serious about learning Spanish.