Non-Native English speakers: How did you learn English?

Most of it through watching TV series in English language when I was younger, and also a couple years learning English in a private institute. Classes in school were never really that helpful lol.

My bachelor degree was taught fully in English so that also helped strengthen my skills.

Quote from zuzuhhaa

im curious

I used to live in India. In India I went to a English Medium school, basically a school were they start teaching you English in 1st grade rather than 5th grade.

Then I moved to the U.S. In second grade I was fine but then I moved to a new school for 3rd grade. I got bullied for my accent and my english skills in 3rd grade so I was lowkey forced to adapt. Eventually my english skills improved, but I lost my Indian accent.

Attended English school and watched English shows at a young age

watched many tv series and anime in english and/or with english subs

also games

got better at talking in english only after I started talking to my online friends on discord VC though

they are kind souls for not bullying me for it

I live in the Philippines so even though most Filipinos can't afford taking English classes, we're conversant in the language since most of our school subjects are in English (Math, Science, History, Physical Ed, Arts, etc.). It's changed a bit now, some schools use Filipino in teaching secondary subjects, and sometimes, History too.

But for me, I've always liked reading and can finish 200-300-page books in less than half a day when I was younger (5th grade). Then I got to practice more through writing my own stories. The interest has always been there, and consuming content in English has helped a lot.

I happen to have foreign teachers in my school. Just communicate with native speakers regularly improve your english I guess

school and later on by watching animes with english subtitles and googling all the words I did not know

I grew up in England until I was 7.

Had 5 years of English in school and then took a 2 year specialized course and passed a final exam.

Then later started watching movies without subtitles and it helped.

first alone, english classes at school were really poor so I couldn't learn anything from there

then my mom decided to take me to a english course

Fighting with people in games

English classes

I had english as a mandatory topic in school since kindergarten. I owe a lot of my english skills to my father who got me into books.

Cartoons as a kid. Through primary school everything was fine then in secondary a few of my friends noted I pronounced some words the American way instead of British (eg fast in American the a sound is short but the British the a sound is slightly longer like in the word far). All those cartoons as a kid basically made me sound a bit American lol.

Watching anime and kdrama with English subtitles, working in England. The first did give me basic vocabulary but it’s so much better actually speaking with native speakers.

At school.

But english at school was a bit of a joke. None of our teachers were native speakers, so their own english was riddled with grammar mistakes and the vast majority of the words we learnt, we learnt with an incorrect pronunciation.

I'm not sure why we allow non-native speakers to teach english tbh. I'm still trying to unlearn all the incorrect stuff they taught me when I was younger.