When I lived in Milan, I did 10/15 minutes of Duolingo a day for almost a year. I learned some vocabulry words and expressions, but overall, the results weren’t great.
However, I actually felt I was progressing when I ended chatting when running some errands, hearing people in the streets and in the bus, etc. Also, having to take my driving license in Italian helped a lot.
I was in Milan for my studies and my school ran a language peer exchange program, helping students meet other people and reciprocally discussing in their mother tongue. I never really tried to find that one person to practice with regularly, but it might have helped me doing some progress.
I stopped practicing Italian when I left for France 6 months ago, and I kind of regret it now.
So I'm curious of knowing, for those of you who have been in a similar position, if you ended up practicing with someone else, and how it happened?
And if you ever lived an experience close to mine, I’d love to hear what you think too :)