Norway

For me, there are several factors involved.

First and foremost, English is a mandatory subject in the Danish education system. When I was in school, we started learning English in the 5th grade. Today that has been moved forward to the 3rd grade. It continues through to the (optional) 10th grade, and usually also in the various forms of continued education. The one I took after the normal kind of school, "Gymnasium" in Danish (which has nothing to do with gym class, by the way), was three additional years of school, with English also being a mandatory class for the first two years. During my third year I took a high-level English class.

When I was about 14, I switched to reading in English almost exclusively. I did this for two reasons. What I mostly read was science fiction, and not much of it was translated into Danish. Also, I found that I preferred to read it in the original language, so nothing was lost in translation.

After the Gymnasium I was unemployed for a while, and then worked for a couple of years in different, mostly unskilled, jobs. I then decided to go back to school to learn an actual trade. I started on an education as a software developer. Since the IT industry moves so fast, and Danish is such a small language, hardly any IT textbooks are translated into Danish, so most of the education material was in English.

As a software developer most of the documentation I read and write is also in English. Methods and variables are named in English, database tables, columns, procedures and functions are named in English, code comments are in English, mostly everything is in English. English is the common language of software developers.

Another factor is that I'm Scandinavian. One thing that sets the Scandinavian countries aside from the rest of the non-English speaking countries in Europe, is that we don't dub movies and TV shows into Danish (except children's movies and TV shows), but use subtitles instead. I'm guessing it's because we have always had very high literacy levels here. At any rate, it means that we hear spoken English and read Danish translations of what is being said for most of our lives. I'm sure this contributes to our English skills, compared to other European countries.

In my school, it's compulsory to study a language at GCSE, and we learnt both French and German. I took German for GCSE. I can also speak a bit of Japanese.

Me too!
I know how to say I don't understand Japanese.. which is a confusing first thing to teach someone in a language.

This is indeed very true, we get almost all Blu Rays and DVDs from Denmark and they are never dubbed. Unfortunately certain distributors (*cough* Nordisk Film *cough*) insist on not including non Nordic(read English) sub titles on the movies they distribute. Often they even have forced subtitles. I much prefer no subtitles or English subtitles, but if I have to go with Nordic subtitles I often choose Swedish subtitles. Faroese subtitles are never an option since we are way too small a market for that.

Sometimes our TV station will subtitle some program or rarely a movie they send. They always subtitle interviews with foreign persons* though, like in the case with this recent interview.


*Danes being an exception.

Well to be honest I picked up a bit by watching anime ;)

Well just like in Wishbone's case when I was little we had no dubbed movies and cartoons, though they switched to dubbed stuff instead of subtitles in recent times. That's how I started learning English and I continued in elementary school. While I was in elementary it was a mandatory subject that started in 5th grade, but they changed that also so kids learn it from 1st grade now. Also that's about time I started playing video games. And since learning English at school wasn't challenging at all and we only learned mere basics I mostly learned from video games and movies. And then it was mandatory in high school and now at college. Also in every elementary and high school has different secondary languages now in my country. At least 1 per school. So Serbian, English and depending on school French, German, Spanish and/or Russian.

Are people seriously learning entire languages by no other means than movies and video games? I'm not complaining ( that sounds like a regiment I could deal with) but it seems like you would need some kind of foundation to get started. Were you totally unexposed when you started the couch potato learning system?

As it is now I haven't learned much of anything from subtitles being on. I'm told not everyone hears what they read, but I do, so it's kind of like hearing two conversations at once and I have to pick one. It makes it hard to actually pay attention to the audio. I have managed to pick out a few frequent things, but looking them up is often challenging for a number of reasons.

Yes. Foreign languages are not really that hard to learn, depending on how different they are from your own. Your native language is English, so learning another Germanic language this way would be very easy, and another non-Germanic European language relatively easy. If you want to learn something more exotic like Japanese, Korean, etc. that's bound to be a little more complicated .

Well first off English is very easy for a lot of Europeans since it's another Germanic language and second because we're inundated with it due to TV, games, books, movies, etc.
And the old games like the Sierra adventure games and interactive fiction such as Zork made learning easier as well because you had to learn to think in rudimentary English sentences.
Learning a complete language from just watching subtitled shows and movies is a lot harder if not impossible.
I've watched a lot of anime and although I've picked up a few sentences and some awareness of the language, it's a far cry (not the game) from being able to actually have a conversation. To do that you'll still have to study.
In practice a combination of the two would probably be optimal, actual study material to learn vocabulary and grammar and such and shows and movies to listen to people actually using the language.

Languages... so far I know three languages, but only 1 of it can be used easily internationally.

Indonesia: Pretty obvious.

English: Start learning this language since I was a junior high student thanks for my dad sending me to a English private classes. Still got grammar problems here and there but I want to hear your opinion about my English skill.

Javanese: My local language. My parents use them verbally since I was born so it kinda stick in my brain easily.




What I want to learn:

Italian: A couple years ago I took a class for this language. But now I completely forget everything I learned.

Japanese: I know several vocabs thanks to me being the so called "otaku" heh.

Russian: This is a challenge I set for myself since people rarely learn this language.

It's supposed to be a fairly digestible language to learn coming from English. It's more strait forward in places where English can get convoluted, has fewer sounds, and is similar in the right places, while being very different in the right places. Both of which keep things from being confusing where they might have been otherwise. At least that is my understanding, and it seems be holding true so far.

It good to know kicking back in front of the TV could actually be productive, and take one more or less all of the way.

I agree. And as with everything you need to learn, don't be afraid to make mistakes. That's one of the things I regret doing. It may feel slightly disencouraging to say the wrong word in the moment but it helps you in the long run.

I've been thinking of reading a third language in university but the problem is I'm not interested in any useful (see: popular, modern) languages that I think I'll have a hard time learning them and then it will have been a waste of time. You also need motivation. Definitely make sure you have the necessary motivation before actually beginning to take courses and stuff.

That's not the best method.

If you really want to learn a foreign language, have sex with a person who speaks that language and not yours. Lots of times. Fall in love (that's optional, but it helps). And if you don't learn the language, well, at least you had some fun.