So did I but, man, that took ten years of pretty intensive study (13 hours a week at the peak, across four school subjects). They taught us really well, but there's got to be a way to reach this level of proficiency with less effort.

This was in the Soviet Union and before the Internet, and so we were studying in complete linguistic isolation. When I met a native speaker for the first time, I had already been studying the language for nearly ten years.

I did have internet for most of my youth. Computer games also helped.