[backwardsponcho]

You'd be surprised at the lengths some will go to avoid learning a new language.

I've met people who have lived over 20y in a country while working, having and raising kids there and still can't have a half decent basic conversation in the local language.

There is always an excuse: too much work, too little time, too tired or you name it, but the end result is that they are inconveniencing themselves.

Not saying it is OP's case, just some anecdotal obserevations.

[djaro]

The thing that makes this illogical to me is that once you reach basic fluency, you stop needing to study since you will now be automatically improving your language skills every time you hold a conversation, read a newspaper, watch a television program, etc. It's genuinely just the relatively small initial hurdle towards ~B1 that is a slog, but after that, you never have to actively study again if you don't want to.

[betaby]

It doesn't feel like that for me. I reached professionally assessed B1 in French about 6 years ago and I don't feel I've reached B2 yet.