I did German in school for 2 years and considered myself able to speak German - what I could really do was introduce myself, explain that I had relatives and that I lived in Wales and had a pet cat - which is better than a lot of people can do but it's not of any actual use in real life outside of a thirty second chat.
When I started coming to Austria (admittedly, over 25 years later) this really hit home and I realised that outside of having some vocabulary I was really in no position to speak or understand any real German.
Initially I stuck to reading things and learning more words - so I got to a point where I understood what 90% of the things in a supermarket were, and I could pay for my goods in German, but outside of that I didn't really have the confidence to try much more. I supplemented this with Duolingo but I didn't honestly see much in the way of an improvement.
I also started watching Netflix in German with English subtitles or in English with German subtitles.
In May this year I enrolled in a German evening course. They did an introduction exam (entirely in German) and explained to me (entirely in German) that I would probably find A1 too boring, and to go to A2. They also warned me I might find the grammar elements harder than the others due to the lack of a genuinely good foundation.
I did A2.1 and honestly, I found it really hard going at first. Coming home from a new job in a new country to go to school for another two hours twice a week was pretty exhausting, and at the age of 44 it's difficult not to feel incredibly thick when you can't wrap your head around a concept that everyone else in the room seems to be fine with.
By the time A2.1 was done I was probably the strongest reader in the group and definitely in the top half for everything else.
I moved on to A2.2 and whilst there was a lot more grammar involved I still enjoyed it. The class is taught *entirely* in German, you are taught to speak German in German, and that is totally different to UK schools where you effectively learn languages "in English". It's definitely more overwhelming but it's definitely more effective.
We spend almost the whole class talking, all of us, in German. There is virtually zero English spoken and over three courses not one of my class mates has been English.
I started B1.1 last month and I'm now so so so much better and also more confident at reading, understanding and most importantly speaking German with native speakers. Now that I've learned Pratäritum I can understand things like newspapers and subtitles better. My vocabulary increases daily.
I really didn't think classes/courses were the answer, I thought I could self serve with apps and self study and stuff but tbh if you genuinely want to learn a language and not just say "Yeah I can do a bit of the French" then generally speaking you need real tuition and you need to be speaking it almost daily as practice, even if it's only with yourself.
The downside is it isn't cheap (€500 per module means I'm €1500 invested so far) and it eats 5-7 hours a week in classes and homework.
Lots of the stuff mentioned above (informal conversation sessions, apps, YouTube, TV) is by no means useless but based on what I've seen in myself and others it is no substitute for actually being taught the language.
