German

I learned English by reading grammar books and listening to the BBC basically. I wanted to have a high grammar and vocabulary level to give a good impression in my interviews for a masters in music composition in a couple of conservatoires in the UK. I put a lot of effort on pronunciation and sentences formation to be successful in the academic world. However, I never went to the UK to study my masters but I ended up living in Australia for a while.

In Australia my excessively well structured English was a barrier to communicate with other people. I could talk well about academic topics but mundane things were odd to my brain. It took me a lot, even after having lived there, to give my English spoken skills a cool casual tone people could feel more relaxed to interact with.

My experience with English was a really good starting point for my plans to learn German. I knew at some extend what I'd done wrong and what to do to improve. My first attempts didn't include any German grammar book or vocabulary material, just listening to the language. Then, I studied basic grammar but that wasn't productive so I switched back to listening again but I actually found myself going in circles.

So, I stopped learning German for a short period of time to understand what was wrong with the method I was using. I came across with a language learning expert on Youtube called Steve Kaufmann who marvelously explained the comprehensible input approach. This method includes consuming content of you interest that is suitable to your level, reading and enjoying the language. Steve's videos were extreme helpful for my learning progress with German and so far, I've noticed that my comprehension level is getting better everyday.

I'm glad to learn that there's not a magic method to acquire a language. Experts and language centers may still believe that the best methods uses books and grammar. However, I love to know from Steve's advice that acquiring a new language is an enjoyable process.