It first began with electronic role playing games — Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, etc. —; I chose the genre because I really appreciated the idea of having to use my intelligence to make progress, and also because of the engaging stories (I literally cried during some of those); for that experience to work, however, I had to actually understand what was being said by the characters, and since none of those games were translated to my native language, I began to play with a dictionary by my side, translating every single piece of text that would appear before me, and as time went by I realized I could remember more and more, needing to consult the book less often.
That was my sole contact with the English language for a while; we didn't have access to the Internet in the Darklands, the VHS movies were already dubbed, I could get foreign music bands' cassette tapes (yeah) but didn't have the written lyrics — though after some time playing RPGs as described above I did begin to associate some of textual words I knew with the sounds I heard, at least now and then. Things really improved when the DVD technology first appeared, because then I could watch movies and series with their original audio, at first with subtitles in my language, then English subtitle, and eventually without subtitles.
Getting my first computer — with all the splendor of its 500mb HD, 64mb of RAM... wow! — introduced me to new technologies, which demanded more English. And with a dial-up connection, there were chats, PBEM RPGs, forums... There was much to learn from those, beginning with the way people sounded (or wrote) in informal contexts. I got to a point where the fellow participants of the online conversation (or whatever it was) wouldn't notice my not being native to their language. The Internet also meant I could acquire untranslated books for the first time — I can't remember which one was my first, by I've had a lot of them since then!
As for my pronunciation, it was terrible; not because I didn't know how something should sound, but because I hadn't ever practiced; I could say something correctly when alone, but when there were others listening I would get nervous, and the words just wouldn't get out (at least not as intended). Honestly, I don't know why I wait for so long before changing that; I guess I just was too nonchalant about it, also happy enough with consuming, not trying to express myself; be as it may, I decided to take care of it, so I started reading everything aloud whenever I could until I developed an intuitive feeling about how a new word should be pronounced.
When I finally left the Darklands to inhabit more cosmopolitan spots, I had some opportunities of talking to foreign people and took advantage of that; I forced myself to be rather shameless about how terribly I sounded until I got comfortable with the frightening experience of communicating in a different language with a real someone, in person. Relaxing was a turning point: after overcoming that psychological barrier, my speech started corresponding to how proficient I actually was regarding the English phonology, to the point of people believing that to be my first language.
I have never followed any language learning method, I did it by a) long-term exposure and b) caring (or loving) enough some odd stuff. Some friends of mine share my interests, and have possibly had the same amount of contact with different languages I've had, but we've approached both differently: they were happy enough, when playing a RPG, with randomly clicking on everything until
something happened, thus they didn't learn from playing RPGs; they waited impatiently until someone dubbed or subtitled a movie or TV series they wanted to see, but not so impatiently they would learn a new language to eliminate the waiting altogether — I know those who have learned English just so they could read the next Patrick Rothfuss' novel before it came to our country, and others who have become fluent in Japanese to watch anime without depending on translations.
Naturally, there are better ways to go about doing that — I mean, unless I were terribly lazy, I simply couldn't but learn at least some English after all those years! But I wouldn't wait for so long to learn a new language now, and I surely would make better use of my time. Some of the learning projects I have planned for the future — the current one, "un-messing my head", is taking precedence — include becoming fluent in some languages, and for each one I have dedicated time to learn about the best resources available and discover how to make good use of them, which has already led me to studying the acquisition of new languages in general.
Now,
@Adonnus, there are different ways of tackling that, each fitting a different learning style. Some people prefer to start with grammar so they will
understand what the language is all about, others prefer to watch people using the language and learning from the context, there are also those who prefer to do lots of drills... I'd advise you to experiment and discover what works for you. If you don't know where to start, try Prof. Alexander Arguelles'
channel on YouTube; the guy is a polyglot himself, considered to be an authority on language learning, his videos are really useful (
this one is about typologies of foreign language manuals and student learning styles).
Unless you just want to read German, start speaking since the beginning; it's harder to fix "pronunciation prejudices" later, so it's a good idea to try something audio based so you'll assimilate the new phonemes, learn the language's rhythm and so on. If you have $$$$, or access to some good libraries, you can check out courses like Michel Thomas and Pimsleur.
There are some good blogs on language learning out there; I like Benny Lewis'
Fluent in 3 Months and Khatzumoto's
All Japanese All The Time (useful not only for learning Japanese). The aforementioned Prof. Arguelles has also founded a very good forum:
How To Learn Any Language. Spend some time browsing those links and I think you'll thank me later.
Viel Glück!
