Hi guys, my native language is Russian and I'm going to tell you my story about how I began to learn English and how I managed to reach this level in 10 months. Unbeliveable, but in January I almost didn't know anything and couldn't understand anything!
December 2020 First off, I started learning it with Duolingo (exactly as 99% people do while learning a new language), however, it turned out to be useless for me, I used it for a month but I didn't notice any progress. Then I downloaded another app - Cake, it goes without saying that it's a great app, I did learn some words... and that's it, I had no idea about how I should have learned a language and therefore I had no progress
January 2021 I was desperately going over various forums in order to find apps to learn English, nevertheless I came across one recommendation with the link to one youtube channel where a guy teaches people English grammar. If you're interested what channel it is, here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/c/%D0%90%D0%9D%D0%93%D0%9B%D0%98%D0%99%D0%A1%D0%9A%D0%98%D0%99%D0%AF%D0%97%D0%AB%D0%9A%D0%9F%D0%9E%D0%9F%D0%9B%D0%95%D0%99%D0%9B%D0%98%D0%A1%D0%A2%D0%90%D0%9C)
I was immensely interested in it, since I observed lots of positive reviews about him and I just wanted to try it out.
Well, he had lots of playlists but I chose the largest one (1032 videos) , and his method was pretty interesting, 20% is theory, and the other 80% is just PRACTICE such as translating from Russian into English, lots of practice. One control work consisted of 7000 sentences (200 videos).
February 2021 I sucessfully was watching this playlist and was invogorated seeing my progress! I could understand simple sentences. I also downloaded an application to memorize words in order to ease my learning, and no, I didn't choose Quizlet or Anki, it was Reword. The best app for learning new words, unfortunately it's not free but if you want you can always bypass it if you have an Android.
March 2021 At this point my level was something between A1-A2, I could read Reddit and understand approximately 20-25% and the same percentage with Youtube (with subtitles). I could comment videos, posts in English, not gonna lie that it's likely that these comments contained grammatical mistakes.
April 2021 I still was watching that course, I would spend 2-3 hours per day on it, in April I already had a strong A2 level, I could understand 30-40% watching a video (without subtitles) if a native speaker spoke distinctly and didn't use complex words
May 2021 It dawned on me that I can, I already can talk to people, to native speakers, I downloaded one app - HelloTalk, and texted some people, most of them were surprised that I had been learning English only for 4-5 months, and I didn't make a lot of mistakes, however, I still didn't know what Conditionals are and other important grammatical stuff hence I could make some mistakes.
June 2021 Finished course, completely, my final score was 97%, I challenged myself and passed IELTS (mock) academic test (ngl it was hard) and scored 5, according to CEFR it was a B1 level. I got a B1 level in less than 6 months and was over the moon. At this point I knew 90% of English grammar and I had to fix things such as listening and speaking. I started watching English news, movies, podcasts. I cannot describe how happy I was when I watched the whole series in English understanding 80-90% of words (with subtitles), I also got down to learning American Phonetic Alphabet, I used one channel for it, if you're interested which channel, here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/c/SoundsAmerican
I don't think I should describe the ensuing months after it since I got this well-known "Intermediate Plateau" and there was nothing interesting, I was just learning new words, watching movies/news, enhancing my accent and speaking. I also could speak with a native speaker in real time through Discord, I spoke slowly but I could, and we could perfectly understand each other.
October 2021 Passed that IELTS Academic (mock) Exam (not real one, but going to take it soon) and got a 6.5 score, that according to CERF signifies a B2 level. I reached it absolutely for free, I spent nothing on it although I heard that it was unfeasible to reach this level for free.
I've written all of this without using a translator, so please, if you notice any mistakes, tell me.
And yeah, I forgot to mention one thing, I had motivation - study in Canada. I wish you good luck in learning languages!
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