I learned English from the fifth grade on up until my last school year, the 13th grade (2010). Around 2009 I started watching TV in English, soon after movies and reading Books. My university courses were partly in englisch.
My grades in school were abysmal.
But then, 3 years after leaving school I went to Norway for a semester, and man, the first few days were an utter embarrasment. At the airport in Norway, I wasn't able to ask where the busses were, shock kept me from bringing out a single word.
Three days later I had lengthy conversations with other international students, my spoken english pretty much sky-rocketed relatively speaking from one day to the other. And suddenly I looked back at school english, where they hammered grammar into me for years, seemingly for nothing, and I felt vindicated.
Forcing a situation where you have to speak it daily, is key.
PS: I am currently in Korea and I gave up pretty much immediately. Learning to speak on the basis of years and years of formal education is one thing, but doing it while starting from scratch on all aspects of language is way too cumbersome with my limited time here in mind. Makes me yearn for home, though. Language can be freakishly alienating.
