I grew up in a non-English suburb and household - we had it as a mandatory subject in school but my conversational skills was zero and my accent was terrible to

I grew up in a non-English suburb and household - we had it as a mandatory subject in school but my conversational skills was zero and my accent was terrible to boot. It helped that I read a lot of English books so that helped when I attended an English only university and speaking for the first time when I turned 18. There was TV but most programs were dubbed - think The Cosby Show, Dallas and Archie Bunker, The Bob Newhart Show, Happy Days was the only English ones we watched. The Waltons was dubbed though. Boy was that difficult in the first year - surrounded by English only speakers from a different culture to boot , so I kept a lot to myself and did not engage with anybody.