I learned English at school, that was 7 years in total I think. The most amazing is that most French who can't speak English, or don't want to, all learned it at school! I love English and languages in general, so I was interested in trying to improve it. But my English really became fluent because I worked for 5 years in the Netherlands. As Kokopup has said, most Dutch speak English so it's hard to learn their language. When they realize you are not Dutch they switch to English, so after some time, especially at work, I gave up with Dutch and spoke only English!
Idioms come from PT mainly