How I learned English

16.04.2021

I speak English fluently now, despite being born a Russian speaker. I did not take any lessons other than what they gave us at school, and we all know that these ones usually do not get you very far. It was all at the center of a videogame called Roblox, which most people reading this are probably familiar with. If you aren't, Roblox is an online platform where anyone can create games. These games span across almost every genre; obstacle courses, shooters, strategies, and RPGs.  I began playing Roblox around 2014, which is usually regarded as the last year of the "old" era. I was 7 back then, and I found it from a YouTube comment section. According to the person making the comment, it had fun Halloween games. It was late October at the time, so I was slightly interested and downloaded it. 

One of the first games I joined was a dance club; I remember walking around with everybody speaking English around me. I still didn't know it at the time, so I was a bit confused. This was a completely English-speaking environment. Back in those years, Roblox was not as globalized, so most players were from the United States and the United Kingdom. There were still obviously people from other countries, but much rarer than they are now. Being immersed in a place where everybody speaks English taught me a lot about it. Within a couple of months, I could already communicate with some of the people; albeit in a basic and non-descriptive manner. I sometimes left games mid-conversation just so that I could look up the translations to unknown words.

I think it took me a couple of years until I was fluent. I also began watching English YouTubers somewhere around that time as I felt that Russian content didn't satisfy me as much. I and a couple of others in my class were the only ones to speak English fluently, and I felt a little happy about it. Even though it was almost 7 years at this point, I still feel like there's more for me to learn. 

What about you? How did you learn English?