Languages are hard!

Learning your first language is hard. I did Spanish since I was 18 and probably became fluent in my late twenties. You don't know what you're doing the first time around. It's easier with a 3rd or 4th language.

There are two key elements in my opinion.

1) Don't stop learning vocab. I thought that because I could say what I wanted (and I could), ...that I knew enough so I stopped learning and then I thought when I couldn't understand native rapid speech that it was because they talked too fast, or had an accent, or I just wasn't good at languages. Then one day I started reading a book in Spanish. I looked up every word I didn't know. 1/2 way through the book it was like someone tuned a radio in. I could suddenly understand rapid speech. The real problem was I'd stopped learning.

2) When you watch Spanish shows or movies, have the subtitles in Spanish not English. When they're in English you think you understand, but really your reading your mother tongue. When you put them in Spanish, you realise what words you don't know and also your ear tunes into to the dialogue that you're matching to the Spanish text. Very powerful

Happy language learning and remember! It's only the people that give up that never become fluent 🙂