Well language learning is more of a spectrum than a binary level, so it is difficult to quantify, but I do watch shows in all of German, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Understanding native Spanish is a struggle though.
As far as tips, I posted tips here:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 10#p133715Edit: Now that I have time to post in more detail, here is my story.
My Language Learning Journey
I started learning German in middle school, because it was a required subject for us. I always excelled at the academic aspects, but didn't do so well at fluency, probably because I was too embarrassed to try speaking much and not inclined to do much practice outside of school. My fourth year of German was really tough, so I stopped after that. When I got to college, I took two semesters of German to fulfill my humanities requirement, making a cumulative five years of classes (not consecutive).
Over the years, I watched German movies when I would stumble upon them on Youtube or whatever, but I didn't do that much with it. The biggest turning point came in 2014 when I learned about Duolingo. The Duolingo German course of course had nothing to offer me since I was already far too advanced, but it did connect me with the community of language learners and led me to discover the polyglot community. I learned that contrary to popular myth, it is not impossible for adults to learn new languages. I also found out that German public television can be streamed for free online, and set a goal of watching at least 90 minutes every week for 2015, during which my listening skills noticeably improved. I also took a week long trip to Berlin, though I was shy as usual and only tried to actually speak German a couple of times.
Armed with my newfound confidence and tools, I decided to try learning a completely new language and decided to start with French. At the time, I didn't know what I was doing, so I tried a bit of everything - French in Action, Easy French, Coffee Break French, Lingvist, etc. But I mostly relied Duolingo and French in Action for the first month. I tried to apply the same methods I used from German, but I quickly discovered that unlike with German TV, French public TV is generally not available online. (It's almost always geo-blocked). But I made due with what I could find through various means. I also watched several French cartoons on Netflix (Wakfu and later Lolirock) and the Youtuber Joueur du grenier.
During this time, I also took a month long break from French to try to develop an ear for Swiss German because I was going on a business trip to Switzerland. This mostly consisted of watching the show Best Friends. Of course, I never got a chance to test it due to being occupied with work matters (all conducted in English of course) and the germanophone Swiss all speak Standard German and I was mostly too shy to try talking to people in German anyway. But whatever, it was worth a try.
Anyway, not counting that detour, my initial French period lasted around 6 months. At that point, I found out about an opportunity to take American Sign Language (ASL) classes nearby and switched to focusing on ASL. Apart from the classes themselves, I did everything I could outside of class. I went through all the Lifeprint lessons, I watched anything I could find online in ASL, I started going to Deaf meetups, etc.
Unfortunately, after the first class, circumstances changed and I wasn't able to take classes any more. I continued going to Deaf meetups twice a month for almost a year, but eventually I decided that I wasn't getting anywhere and gave up.
I find it ironic that ASL is easily my weakest language despite having more in-person interaction time than every other language put together and more formal instruction than every language except German. But the methods I used for the other languages just don't work for ASL. With popular foreign languages, you can essentially immerse yourself in the language just by watching TV, but that is not possible with ASL.
Apart from that, the lack of a written form makes self-study extremely difficult. You can't just look up unfamiliar words like you can with other languages. Or rather you can look up the signs for English words but there is no way to do the reverse. And there's a lot of variation in the way things are signed, meaning that the signs you look up are often not helpful anyway. There's basically no way to progress without having someone to ask questions to. Lastly, the grammar is very different. Noone seems able to describe it, but the consensus is that "pure" ASL involves a completely different way of thinking than English, and the only way to learn that seems to be immersion. To add to the confusion, there is a wide variety of backgrounds and skill levels, so it is common to see people signing with English word order, even among the Deaf/HoH, and as a learner it is hard to even tell what is right.
I am still interested in learning ASL, I just don't think that I can right now. I do intend to take it back up if the opportunity ever arises (i.e. consistent practice opportunities and access to teachers), but in the mean time, I've forgotten almost everything.
Anyway, after my ASL classes ended, I took up Spanish. I used more or less the same approach as with French (start with Duolingo and try to start watching TV as soon as possible). The main difference is that with French, I focused on watching authentic native content. When it came to Spanish, I discovered that there were hardly any native Spanish shows on Netflix that I cared to watch, unlike with French. On the other hand, there are more shows dubbed into Spanish than any other language (due to Spanish being the secondary language of the US). For example, all the Disney/Marvel movies were available in English and Spanish on Netflix (US) but no other languages. So I ended up just watching lots of shows dubbed into Spanish instead (H2O: Just Add Water was one of my favorites).
Watching dubs opens up a lot more possibilities, because you can just find something you like, including the full strength of the American media empire, and watch the dub instead of relying on Netflix's limited foreign catalog. Apart from that, I think dubs are generally easier to understand than native content. Nowadays, I watch most TV shows and movies on Netflix dubbed, so I can try to kill two birds with one stone.
Over the next year, I "studied" French, and occasionally Spanish, off and on through these methods. It seems like every New Years finds me resolving to resume study of French, but I never get particularly far. For a while, I was trying to do The Mimic Method French course, to work on my pronunciation, but then that got discontinued.
Last summer, I had a Dutch coworker and got inspired to try to learn Dutch (though I never worked up the courage to try to actually speak it with him). Dutch is of course a substantially less useful language than French or Spanish, but I figured it would be a lot easier because it is very similar to English and German, which I already spoke. I knew from the outset that I probably wouldn't study it long term, but I figured I'd spend 5-6 months on it and see where I got.
So I started with the now familiar method of Duolingo + TV. The difference this time is that I primarily relied on Dutch public television, which is available free online, much like with German and Swiss German TV. (I'm not sure why the divide lines up so cleanly between Romance and Germanic language public broadcasters, but that's what I've observed). Apart from that, Netflix doesn't have much in Dutch anyway due to the relative obscurity of the language. My only annoyance was that it was difficult to get reliable streams even at the lowest quality, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. I was also a big fan of the Youtube series Jachtseizoen.
Anyway, my coworker went back to the Netherlands in December, and as planned, I called it quits and returned my attention to French, (marking yet another New Year devoted to French). But I think this time will be a lot more successful, since I discovered a French meetup near me that happens every two weeks. So far it's been great for practicing speaking French, so I am finally getting a chance to work on my speaking skills a bit. I'm planning to visit France in the summer for vacation, after which I plan to resume Spanish or possibly start learning Japanese. I've always wanted to learn Japanese, but I understand it will be a lot harder than the big European languages I have experience with. Still, I figure that if I only care about listening skills (i.e. the ability to understand Anime), it shouldn't be too bad, since the most difficult part of Japanese is the writing systems.
