could not resist to add more I was first introduced to the English grammar when I was in the 6th grade of elementary school. I had always known basic English phrases and vocabularies (like 'thank you', 'car', 'dog', etc.), but I wasn't able to actually speak 'correct' English. For example, when I wanted to say "What are you doing?", I would say "What you do?" or even worse, "You do what?"
In 6th grade, I got really confused by the many rules of the grammar, and I got really sick of it. I hated the verb conjugations, the tenses, the plural nouns. I then became very apathetic towards it, and I just studied it only for exams (or not, because I'm just too lazy XD).
My mother language is Indonesian, which is considered to be the easiest language in the world. Everything that exists in the English language simply doesn't exist in my mother language. Verb conjugations? Waste of time. Past, present, future tenses? Just use time adverbs and everything's gonna be alright. Plural nouns? What is that?
And then I entered
b tech computer science. The new English teacher was a very fun guy. He somehow made English a very interesting thing. But even so, the grammar was still frustrating to me (even though looking back, the grammar lesson back then was seriously child's play), and I didn't make any significant progress. But thanks to that teacher, I changed my mindset about English.
I then started watching movies, cartoons, TV series with English subtitles. At first, I understood NOTHING. I relied only on the context and the pictures to understand what was going on in the movie. I guessed the meaning of every word in the subtitles, I read the subtitles out loud. I kept doing this for the next six months, and guess what? Without any grammar books or English courses whatsoever, I understood everything in English. I could understand what the lady on the news said, and to my surprise, I could read English newspaper! The days of painfully reading the subtitles are gone, but thanks to that, my spelling and reading skills had a huge progress.
I didn't study English, I learned English. I don't even know why, but after those six months, in which I didn't talk to anybody using English, I could speak English comfortably (correct grammar and pronunciation, yay!). It's like English is my 'second' mother language. Even now, whenever I don't know a word, I usually guess the meaning and it's usually correct. I even learned some English idioms and proverbs from the movies I watched. I achieved all of that in 6 months, without making notes and buying lots of books (save the environment!). Cheapest way of learning a language ever.
Some of you might not believe this, but this is what actually happened. I went from knowing zero English (well, probably 0.00005) to having almost full comprehension of it in only 6 months, by just watching TV with English subtitles.
I continued developing my English skills after that 6 months, and here I am, having a scholarship to study in an english-speaking country.
You don't study a language, you learn it.
