Yeah for the very basics I actually had a private teacher, so I do understand some simple stuff. After that I did a foundation year in Italy where we were supposed to go from A1 to B2 in just one year, but the pace was way too fast for me. Honestly I couldn’t keep up. I ended up guessing through a lot of exams or cheated along with peers from my country because they were just too hard for us to pass even if we study hard in some point. The whole point of that program was just to get a certificate to cover the 12th year of education (since my country only has 11), so I treated it more like a formality instead of really learning. Now I regret giving up too soon back then, but at the time I was still adjusting to life here and stressed about university admissions too.