Introduction:

“Are you fluent?” is possibly the question most dreaded by all language learners. What degree of proficiency even counts as “fluent,” anyway?

Being able to have a conversation? Being able to write 2000+ kanji characters? Never having to use a dictionary? It’s terrifying to even contemplate describing oneself as “fluent” without looking obnoxious. Even worse is the nagging self-doubt—will I ever actually reach “fluency”?

The path to being fluent looks rocky and difficult from the outset, with so many obstacles that this shining goal may seem almost impossible to reach. I don’t know about getting you to one hundred percent native-like, but what I can do is help you get from elementary level to a level that you can be proud of, and one that won’t make you want to cry when people ask that dreaded fluency question.

Japanese is described as one of the most difficult languages to learn. Unlike arguably easier languages for native English speakers, such as French, German and Spanish, Japanese requires several years of constant dedication. Studying the traditional way—with textbooks, CDs, and perhaps a teacher—is only a small part of reaching beyond beginner and lower-elementary level.

Here are six great ways that you can step up your Japanese ability every day and get closer to that goal, that magic word, “fluency. “ Living in the country of your target language is important, of course, but not necessary. If you’re not living in Japan right now, don’t despair. The first steps to fluency are possible if you know where to look.

• How difficult is it to learn Italian?

If you speak English, you may find similarities between many words. Those words are called Cognates, which are similar in pronunciation, spelling, and meaning. Don’t forget that the accent makes a lot of cognates sound different. In terms of Cognates, Italian and English share a lot of words. Surprisingly, there are some cognates that are similar to Hindi and Sanskrit. Probably, it is because of the fact that the root of the languages in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent is the same, i.e. Indo-European language tree.

Then why Italian is difficult to learn? As per my experience I had when I started learning Italian, the Italian grammar is a bit overwhelming. The rules are too many and due to the complexity of the Italian language, it is baffling for most of the English/non-Latin speakers.

Things to keep in mind

• Understanding a spoken foreign language is a whole other skill set from reading, speaking, and writing. You need to have a lot of exposure to the sounds of a language before the words sound familiar enough to recognize. So what you are encountering is perfectly normal!
• When babies learn their maternal language, they do a lot of babbling to imitate the sounds that they hear. Babies in Italian-speaking countries will develop a babble that sounds distinctly different from babies in the day, English-speaking countries. Slowly but surely, through a lot of imitation and reinforcement from caregivers, the baby develops language. They move into recognizable sounds, like ma-ma, da -da, ba-ba, etc. They then move into actual words, then sentences. So they can communicate through simple speech, but they lack the vocabulary and complex understanding of a language to have any kind of meaningful conversation until much later. These stages of development are the same for people acquiring another language. We must first go through this stage of just being able to differentiate the different sounds of a language, which are often very different from ours. Also, despite knowing the vocabulary, to hear a native speaker speaking Italian is going to sound much different than a native English speaker speaking Italian.  
• Another factor to consider, in English we have a glottal stop, so we can better hear the start and stop of different words, but much less so in romantic languages (especially in Italian, which to the untrained ear sounds like one long flowing string of sounds)
• However, when listening, you’re suddenly thrown into the deep end because you’re forced to understand and absorb the words and meanings of what’s being spoken at the speaker’s pace.
• Further to that, the human brain is specifically attuned to process the world through visuals, which means your brain can process things coming from your eyes far more naturally and quickly than things that come through your other senses, so it makes sense that the visual aspect of a language (reading and writing) is far easier to master than the auditory aspect (listening and speaking).
• My tips, force yourself to be fully immersed in the language – don’t even have English as an option to fall back on. An example of this would be to say watch Italian language TV with Italian subtitles. If you need to, pause the TV to process the subtitles, but this will teach your brain to match the Italian words (which you are already comfortable with) and the sounds. Of course, nothing ever beats the full immersion that comes with finding someone who can speak the language and asking them to speak only Italian to you.
• One more tip: try not to worry about picking up every single word that’s being spoken, but try more to understand the overarching point that’s being made. Italian is one of the world’s languages with low information density per word so Italian speakers tend to speak quite fast, but it also means that it’s ok if not every single word is picked up and processed by you. You can also always ask the speaker to speak more slowly at a pace that you’re comfortable with. Pretty much every Italian speaker I know (myself included!) are extremely friendly people and would be more than happy to find out you’re learning their language and to help you out!
• Carry a dictionary around with you and try to translate every sign you see into Italian! Also, try imitating the words you hear from native speakers.