My first language was definitely not English, nor was my second language.
I was born speaking Korean with my family and grew up to speak French in school. So where did I exactly learned English? Believe it or not, school was not where I first learned to speak English.
I didn't learn much from school, referring to elementary and high school, but it did help me build some basis.
I naturally started to learn English by playing online games. I was first introduced to a game called Lineage. I learned names of food as I was shopping to fill my character's hunger, names of animals by hunting them to earn easy early experience, and other things as I tried to complete quest and MOSTLY by trying to communicate with players. I was very young. I played many other games and each time I learned new words. Mabinogi was very helpful.
Obviously, game was not everything, I was lucky that I grew up in an area where French was not the only language spoken; English was still commonly spoken. I had a chance to practice here and there. + FRIENDS online. (global)
Another helpful tool I had was manga! So much easier to read than a book! Later, I preferred reading books. I also watched animations and movies in English. I remember recording and re-watching them over and over just because I loved them. Each time I re-watched it, I heard things I did not previously.
When I went to college, university and started working, those are the places where I was able to refine my English.
Life is full of opportunity if you're looking for.
Learn as you're having fun! It is the EASIEST way to learn.
I wish i could do the same effectively in Japanese. But things are written in Kanji and newly discovered Kanji is a bitch to look up if you don't happen to know some of the readings (they have multiple depending on the word.)
I also think that the reason why we are pretty decent at English in Scandinavia is thanks to English media such as music, games, movies, tv etc... It happends naturally since we pretty much don't have a choice (not dubbed). In Norway we are exposed to English from the time we are little kids so for most of us it comes pretty much natural. But of course, when it comes to pronounciation, it's a whole different story thanks to our own language's pronounciation being just a tad different. But yes I do think that exposing yourself to the language as much as possible, coupled with a bit of boring grammar study, sentence writing and glossary tests, will eventually make you pretty decent at the language. The number of great games in English are uncountable so it shouldn't be a problem to have fun with it too.
