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But nothing beats in-person. Find language meetups, social events, etc. The people who I know who get fluent fastest don't care about making mistakes and getting out there, most important thing is just to try and talk any chance you get!
What worked very well (from my point of view) for me, was binge watching American movies/shows. I would watch maybe 3 hours each day before going to bed, and I feel like my brain worked a lot on that while I was asleep.
As for what seems to be your introvert temperament, not sure what would work best. Maybe finding groups around you that do something you like.
Just out of curiosity, what is your native language?
One of the things that came to mind when considering your question… your struggles are likely common to other folks who share the same native language as you.
For example, certain sounds may be hard to make, and you're accustomed to saying certain letter combinations in one way for your native language that may be different for English.
If you can find others locally, who also share the same first language as you, they may be able to give you pointers to help with the same challenges.
Take the initiative to talk to other people. That's honestly the best way to improve. You just have to work out of that zone. Go to your local library or go to your local college/university that has an ESL (English as a second language) option. Ask for help finding a group to practice English with. They'll often have free or inexpensive ways to speak English with others. The discomfort you feel when speaking a second…
Yup.
If your goal is gaining native/near-native fluency then there is no other option but to talk/write to people.
Lots of people will try to tell you "just use Anki", just use some AI-gimmick, just read books or just listen to lots of podcasts. But they are wrong.
The problem with the one-sided immersion as I listed above is that you will become very good at comprehension. You will be able to perfectly understand what people are saying, you will be able to perfectly understand complex written documents, or documents with lots of native slang and abbreviations.
But comprehension != fluency.
If you want to be able to speak and write like a native, then there's no shortcut. You have to get off your backside and interact with the natives in live bi-directional form.
AI will NOT help you with this. AI is very good at being very confident at being very wrong, that is not what you want. You want humans, real life humans, the more the better (then you get exposed to different dialects, different age groups etc. etc.).
If you absolutely must have an app, then look at something like HelloTalk which is basically 21st century pen-pals, find a human language partner and chat with them.
But really, just join a sports club, do some hobbies, go down the pub .. whatever gets you in the room with humans.
I would recommend seeking out other people in your same situation to talk to. Non-native speakers who are eager to learn but aren't yet fully fluent. You feel more emboldened to correct each other, you feel much more comfortable asking questions, and there's just no substitute for opening your mouth and speaking a language for hundreds of hours (even if it's a very basic version of that language). You're gonna do gre…
That sounds like a way to acquire an unusual dialect that might even be more confusing to both native and non-native English speakers, especially those outside of the major cities who aren't already used to talking with non-native speakers.
If somebody wants to become fluent in Canadian English, they'll need to directly interact with native Canadian English speakers (or certain native American English speakers) for a prolonged period of time.
Even then, I know many non-native English speakers in Canada who can get by well enough day-to-day, but even after many decades of daily practice, daily use, and daily exposure in Canada, they're still quite far off from fluency in many ways.
Move on to reading books - you can start with simple comic books like Tintin, Asterix, Archies etc. if you find reading "boring" at first. And later move on to kids / teens novels (I'd recommend British authors like Enid Blyton and JK Rowling). These will also give you an immersive experience to western culture.
Another enjoyable way to build up your vocabulary is to watch English TV series with English subtitles.
Finally, you do not need to be embarrassed about trying to talk with someone in broken english. You are trying to learn a new language and you should be proud of that. There are so many people in the world who can speak only one language, and they don't realise how much it limits the way they view the world. People are often unkind because of their narrow worldview. It has nothing to do with you because you are actually expanding your worldview, and it makes such people uncomfortable because they have never tried to do so. Just find somebody else to talk to - there are kind people everywhere.