My sister’s boyfriend from Aachen, German visited over Christmas. His English is very good considering he hasn’t taken any since high school (8 years; he’s my age) and he and she mostly speak German together. I’ve been meaning to start learning but I just haven’t had the time, priority, or means (both in method and money) to do it. And then I found Duolingo through a news article on an academic study that showed school-aged children who used Duolingo to learn a language improved their testing scores in that language by significantly more than students that learned another language the traditional classroom route. So I started using it. It is free, it is easy, and it is working for me. I can already have (very) basic conversations with my sister (about completely useless things, of course!). And its only been a week.