No doubt, we need friends, teach-yourself books, programmes and so on. It is difficult to learn languages without such "tools" but nothing is impossible.

Of course. There are tapes and books that are now easily available in the market. If you want to learn a language just for the purpose of traveling and getting by then that's just OK. But, if you want to learn further like going to school and getting a job or reading your favorite books, etc. Then you need to learn it professionally with self help. Meaning practice what you learn.

"can you learn a foreign language by yourself?" certainly you can, with confidence and self-motivation! a good way to learn by yourself is through the pimsleur method. it contains conversations that the speakers repeat and gives you time to repeat them. i only learned one arabic lesson, but from listening to the conversation and repeating what they said, i learned many vocabulary words, the grammatical structure of some sentences, and pronunciation.

It is possible to learn by yourself, but it may be slower than learning with a tutor or teacher. It also depends on the dedication you put into it. If you put your mind to it you can do it! May vary with different types of people.

I think that it's difficult to learn a foreign language on my own, but I may start learning it without connecting people by reading handbooks for beginners and listening to songs and news.