I guess learning a language works different for different people. Me, I took English classes for several years, but what really got me over the hump was reading

I guess learning a language works different for different people. Me, I took English classes for several years, but what really got me over the hump was reading Guitar Player magazine. Since I like playing the guitar, reading the magazine was interesting to me. And it was written for native English speakers, so no sugar-coating or "simplified" version there. Curiously, once I was able to read Guitar Player in the bus without a dictionary by my side, I also became able to understand spoken English. I don't know why, really. I suppose I had gathered enough data from reading the magazine to be able to extract meaning from context not only when reading, but when listening to spoken English too.