This is why I'm not a big fan of language classes. They aren't all bad, people can learn to speak some of the language they want, but the problem is that the students usually never learn how to learn languages after the class ends. They are left without a textbook and a teacher and no direction so they usually just stop learning or using the language altogether. That's what happened to the German I learned in college. I took two years, could kind of speak it, but quickly forgot about it with no further direction. When I wanted to learn Japanese years later, I learned a lot from RU-vidrs like MattvsJapan, Steve Kaufman, Days and Words, and Refold on how to actually self study languages. The core steps are simple, but there is a lot of small details that I had to learn to make self learning work for me. I really think that if more people spent time learning language learning skills instead of messing around in apps like Duolingo or generic classes then there would be a lot more successful language learners out there.
I had a similar experience. Two years of French, forgot all of it after I got out of classes. Then last year, I decided to tackle learning Chinese through self-study, and figuring out how to learn that made it much easier to start others.
