I understand the difficulties you've had with getting immersed with German, given that my target language while in the military had very little content period, let alone things I was particularly interested in. It might be worthwhile to look for German translations of works you've read/watched in your native language or English, though, if you're still interested in learning it.
> I feel duolingo has the same problem - no matter how much you "learn" with the app, it won't ever stick unless you can practice somewhere in the real world.
Yeah, there's too many methods you need to use to facilitate language learning and while Duolingo can potentially fill a lot of these holes, I don't think it can be your holistic one stop shop.
And yeah, anyone that's trying to learn a language should definitely try immersing with a tool like this. Connecting words with things on screen and hearing different people speak are really useful, and your retention of vocabulary is going to be better when you can see it in different contexts.
If everyone learned at least one foreign language, the world would be a much better place.
There are a few options to learn a language. Some say immersion. What's most effective for the brain to capture and memories is _needs_.
We tend to learn languages out of a desire to add them to our skill belt. Or out of fun. And we are having a hell of a time this way. Duolingo innovates and will happily monetize their effort.
Learn a language? Move to the country where it's spoken. Get a job where interactions are a necessity, but where one would perform to some level without even the basics. Think kitchen porter in a buzzing restaurant. 6 months later you are fluent, and have actually learnt local expressions and the way people actually communicate. From there you can read books and ramp up your vocab to proper fluency.
I took English, by force, for 12y , 4h per week. I could still barely read, and in no way get a face to face conversation even started other than hello, what time is it.
Months in an environment where communication was a need, and suddenly I found myself nearly fluent. Never having to open a grammar manual or do extra effort for the sake of learning.
The teaching models are flawed. They are designed to extract a profit, at the detriment of the learners.
That said, relatively casual language learning isn't likely to yield a lot outside of essentially entertainment value. I had four years of high school French which likely tops the relatively casual bar. On the one hand, I classify my French as pretty terrible. On the other hand, I've traveled to Paris with a friend who doesn't know any French and it makes me realize I actually do have a bit of working knowledge especially when it comes to reading.
In my experience, most people need both some explanation of the fundamentals of grammar/pronunciation (formal education) combined with opportunities to use the language (immersion is perfect for this, but you can practice on your own as well). Figuring out what differences in Mandarin pronunciation are essential for meaning (tone) vs. which ones are meaningless, for example, is very difficult to do from immersion alone.
It's possible for the formal education to be in the target language, but if so it has to be very carefully designed. In my experience Duolingo does a somewhat decent job at the formal education part, but is more helpful if you had some formal education in a language, so you know what variations to look out for.
It sounds like you already had quite a lot of formal education before you had a chance to do immersion. Glad it worked for you!
Duolingo has been very effective for me, not because it's perfect, but because it's something I can actually do, while moving to a Spanish-speaking country or getting a job at a restaurant run by Spanish-speakers is not. Could I learn faster? In theory, but in practice it's the only strategy I've been able to stick with and I still am making progress. It's given me the foundation to practice using the language in other ways.
Language learning also requires you to actually be invested in the learning. I don't think any learning method works if you are totally passive. You have to be trying new things. You don't have to necessarily put yourself in a situation where you need to use the language. I've seen plenty of homesick people studying abroad who really need to learn the local language, but resent it, and end up sitting around learning nothing. But you do have to want to use the language. My German teacher was great at this. German had no practical applications where I studied, but we would play games, make jokes, and generally toy around with the language, which helped us push the boundaries of our language knowledge.
And I'm afraid that last 0.1% of aquisition is pretty much impossible to obtain deliberately unless you abandon your native language. Even your English, whilst technicaly good, has a couple of flags.
But those last .1 % are not very useful anyway if you're not living abroad. You want to be able to communicate fluently and not make noticeable mistakes, but it's not necessary to seem like a native speaker. Unless you want to become a spy maybe.
Conversational literacy is a huge step on its own.
I have found that English is a bit weird in that you need obsessively high absorption of like, culture, to execute well, so it’s easier to spot non-native speakers.
This applies to every language out there, English is certainly not an exception in this aspect.
I'd think that English is not unique there.
To speak Chinese at the level of an educated native, I'd say you have learn not only the language, but also the country's history, and have some familiarity with canonical Chinese texts such as the "Four Books and Five Classics" (Confucius, Mencius, etc.), "The Dream of the Red Chamber", etc., to understand idioms such as "四面楚歌" (four sides of Chu song = facing insurmountable difficulty, defeat [1]).
As another example, Hong Kong has its own lingo (a variety of Cantonese) that evolves so rapidly that HK people that have been abroad a few years tell me that they note that the language has evolved and shifted when they come back.
I'm fairly certain that it is easy to spot non-native speakers in many languages, maybe even easier than in English.
For me, it has everything to do with actually using the languge in practice. English was and is everywhere - it's much easier to practice when all your favourite movies, games and books are in English - but my real life experience with German was limited to those few times we went to Germany or Austria.;
I feel duolingo has the same problem - no matter how much you "learn" with the app, it won't ever stick unless you can practice somewhere in the real world.