u/Accomplished-Mud-974

Six years on and off, and I'm still stuck at the level where I can read but freeze in conversation. I've tried Duolingo (great for vocab, useless for fluency), Pimsleur (kind of helped), iTalki (£40/hr is a lot for what I needed).

What actually moved you from "can read a menu" to "can hold a real conversation"? And — bonus — was it about input volume, or specifically forcing yourself to speak (and embarrass yourself) more?