Have you had teachers?

[zjones]

I never had formal language classes at any time.

BUT I did take 5 lessons from an iTalki tutor.

French
A1 - 100% self-taught
A2 - 100% self-taught
B1 - 98% self-taught

Personally I would love to reach my goal without any teacher. I prefer to be self-sufficient, which has turned out to be both a good thing and bad thing in language-learning. However, I think I need to be more open to the idea of having a teacher for working on output.

I didn't answer the poll because I haven't reached my goal in French (which is at least B2).

[leosmith]

90% autodidact or 100% autodidact is exactly what I want to know.

That would make an interesting poll, imo. I'm probably 90%+ in all my languages. I'll never be one of the cool kids though.

[eikona]

Most of the time - last attempt to learn italiano was a fail due to lack of a teacher, now I'm attempting to learn Russian, without one, and I'm hoping to shatter the pattern- wish me luck.

Speaking-wise, English is my second best, and there's been teachers since the beginning of my learning, but also tons of casual non formal resources, such as 8 seasons of House MD, The Deathly Hallows, and so on...

[chove]

Have had teachers for Spanish and German (mostly-online university courses), but for Polish I've been on my own all the time.

[cathrynm]

Yes, for Japanese, have had teachers all along for this language. For Finnish no, just chat rooms and random people, aside from flash cards and books.

[mrap]

I actually learned Norwegian in a classroom setting in a Nordic-language specializing school in my hometown. It was actually one of the best decisions, as the classes were small - 4-5 people and the teacher, so everyone had a lot of time to speak, plus the teacher forced to use the language as much as possible - even saying "I don't understand", "I don't know, how it is called in Norwegian", "How is [...] in Norwegian". Actually laid out a good deal of structure for me. I think, if you have the chance and ability to attend a good language class for A1 level, I would highly recommend it, it might give you a good foundation background to continue learning on your own onward, given that the class is focused on speaking as my Norwegian class was - more speaking, usage of phrases, expressions, and grammar and vocab lists as a background information to retain and reiterate the information learned.

[tarvos]

I've had plenty of tutors for nearly every language.

[Cèid Donn]

I have had some teachers along the way. But most were in school/uni. Outside of school/uni, I've only paid for online classes for Scottish Gaelic and for an Gaelic immersion summer course. Otherwise, I have been a self-learner.

It's not that I'm adverse to paying tutors--I worked as a writing and test taking skills tutor for ESL students and students with disabilities throughout uni and so naturally, I think a good tutor is worth the money. I'd gladly pay for a good, experienced tutor in my target languages if I had the money to do so (the ones I would be comfortable paying are the ones who can rightly charge the big bucks), but I do agree with some others here who have commented on the lack of guided instruction in some more novel online "tutoring" formats and in language exchanges.

I am on the autism spectrum and I have issues with anxiety relating to social interactions and communication, so for me to even deal with a tutor or a study partner, I need to feel confident with that individual and be able to expect some adherence to structured learning with them. Language exchange/conversation partner sites terrify me and give me flashbacks of the various failed attempts at finding a Gaelic study partner which I suffered through early on my Gaelic learning. So I have double motivation to never pay money for language exchange or conversation partners.

So aside from my previous Gaelic courses and a former (unpaid) study partner who had to stop after several years due to personal obligations, I'm just another boring self-learner doing what I can with what I have.