When I was younger, I took a submersion course in French. The goal was to learn the language intuitively and not by translating back and forth in your head while speaking. You know, someone says something, you translate it in your mind, then compose a response, translate your response into the appropriate language and speak it.
This causes you to be much slower in the language due to the extra work.
Does anyone have any tips or tricks to lerning Esperanto in a more intuitive way? Just curious.

I would like to know this too. Seems the older I get the harder it is to try and learn a new language without translating it into my native English first. It makes it hard to really listen and understand when someone is speaking, because I'm too busy trying to translate first and understand second. I've tried to learn Spanish, and struggled with it. I can sort of read it, but understanding it when someone is speaking it is another matter, no matter how many Spanish soap operas I watch on TV!
The course "Bildoj kaj Demandoj" on this site is pretty good for beginners, as the lessons are all in Esperanto, and it uses pictures to teach. But I still struggle with remembering what the words mean.

In my view, attaining fluency, which is what I believe you are talking about, requires our subconscious to be engaged, and children find this a lot easier. But adults can achieve much by regular study.

The experience of immersion in Esperanto certainly helps, and this can be obtained through congresses (national or international) or summer schools. Therefore, it is a good idea to go to such events.

It is also helpful to meet Esperantists as individuals and speak the language with them. It is also useful to correspond with Esperantists (which you can do through this website, if you get to know individual members through correspondence).

Listening to the radio is helpful in learning to understand the spoken language. Radio Pollando, Radio verda and Ĉina Radio are examples of stations.

It is also worthwhile to read in the language, particularly a general magazine like Monato when you have acquired a reasonable vocabulary, or if you are a beginner, magazines like Juna Amiko.

Use the language! The more you use it, the more intuitive it will become. Read in Esperanto and try to read fluently without translating each sentence in your head. You can go back later and translate it word for word but the more you get yourself used to reading without translating, and reading it again and again until you understand the idea of the text, the easier Esperanto will flow for you.

Esperanto music also helps. Singing along with songs gets you used to saying words in the right order without necessarily thinking about the translation.

I definitely agree with Miland that the best way is to get yourself speaking in an Esperanto environment, preferably in a place with a lot of international speakers (where you can't resort to English)

I find that when I listen to Radio Verda, I understand much more if I just treat it as though it were music and let it wash over me without trying to translate the words in my mind. For some reason when I bypass my "language filters", I comprehend much much more. And as erinja says, "use the language"! Over the last year my Esperanto fluidity has gone up 50% by trying to use it every day in some way. And it's fun

I used to listen to Esperanto podcasts while commuting back and forth to work (an hour each way) and I noticed my comprehension and ease of use grew exponentially. But, alas, the device I was using to listen to them through the car has broken. Thank you all for your comments, I certainly appreciate it. I must say, that the Esperanto community has been one of the kindest that I have ever met on the Internet.

I think it's a process you have to go through. I remember hearing years ago that there are 4 stages to becoming proficient at something: unconscious incompetence -- you don't even know that the subject exists, let alone that you can't do it; conscious incompetence -- where you know that you can't do it; conscious competence, where you can do it but you have to think about it; and unconscious competence where you can do it without thinking. I think you have to go through all 4 stages to become proficient at anything. I'm between stages 2 and 3 with my Esperanto. Some of it I know and some I don't but I always have to think about it.

I really think that you have to go through the whole range to learn Esperanto, but be patient, it will come if you stick with it; remember, after learning English for a year, you probably only knew how to say 5 or 6 words well and most of your communication was done by crying, grunting and pointing, or screaming. So, knowing an English word for a concept you want to talk about in Esperanto will help speed things along, just try to associate the Esperanto word with the concept so that someday you won't need the English word; someday, when you hear someone say ruĝa domo you'll picture a red house without thinking of the English words red house.

angel32163:But I still struggle with remembering what the words mean.

I'd suggest checking out Anki, it's really been helping me learn words; http://ichi2.net/anki/

I'd suggest this to anyone learning Esperanto, actually.

The program has a deck sharing service, there's a deck available with all the official words, and I've created my own with the vocabulary words from the book I'm reading.

That's great. I use Anki also. I use a program that shares the same decks (sets of flashcards) that I use with Anki.
It has really helped me with my grasp of the correlatives. I got stuck there for a while.

You are probably more capable of comprehending without translation than you realize.

For example, do you really need to translate the following in order to understand it?

Mia domo estas blua.

My guess is, no. It's very simple, and you (probably) already know all the words. So, you should be able to read it and realize that you understand it BEFORE you consciously translate it. However, if you are in the habit of translating everything you read, then you (probably) read it, understood it, but spent a few mental cycles translating it anyway.

Stop that. You didn't need to translate it. So don't.

What helped me - and I had the same problem you did - was that translating what I was reading was more of a habit than a necessity, and once I realized that, things became a lot easier.

Try reading a sentence and then, before translating it in your head, just ask your self "Did I already 'get' what the sentence was saying?" If so, do NOT translate the sentence, but move on to the next one and do the same thing with that.

If you see a word that you don't know, see if you can understand it from the context. If you can't, THEN look it up (but only that word). Only if you finish the sentence, and your comprehension is still "???", should you then go through and try to put it into English. Or, if you didn't understand just a part of the sentence (the grammar was a little odd, or the writer switched the position of the nominative and accusative and that's throwing you, or whatever) should you try and translate, and then ONLY translate the part you didn't already understand.

Make THIS process your new habit. What will happen? At first, your reading speed will probably be pathetic. But - and trust me on this - if you practice this technique, there will quickly come a time when you find that you can read Esperanto text almost as fast as you can read the English version.

Don't make translating into English a crutch. It is VERY likely that you don't need to do it all the time, but you have to try and give yourself permission to NOT do it when you've so far always given yourself the requirement of ALWAYS doing it.

It just takes a little effort.