Hmm... every comment I read actually talks about making an effort. Let me give some mundane advice. For English, I didn't have to make much of an effort. I was

Hmm... every comment I read actually talks about making an effort. Let me give some mundane advice. For English, I didn't have to make much of an effort. I was 12, loved Dragonball Z -- we have subtitled television. I wanted to know more about it, the US was further in the series than The Netherlands, so I started reading English websites even though I didn't understand much of it. Eventually I got on forums being a smartass that Goku's power level was not xyz because at website abc.com I read it was abc. All the while I was forced to look in the dictionary from time to time. Also, we went on vacation, then you have to speak English or their native tongue, so I always chose English. I got on more forums after realizing that the English web has more information than the Dutch web. I started writing there as well. Eventually I'd watch English instruction videos on any topic and learned a lot of things. Eventually I'd even watch psychology courses from Harvard while still being a high school kid. Then I got to uni and some Dutch people had trouble with academic writing or writing English in general. All that I understood from those people is that they haven't been as much on the English web as I have been. So yea like many of us who learned English as a 2nd language (in order of importance): the web, videos/series/movies, instructional books, vacations, games and music. Note: if Japanese would've had a roman alphabet and a stronger web presence I'd be better in that too, since anime is kind of 'force feeding' me Japanese words as well.