which is regarding improving your speaking ability and confidence, right?

So, Mariana wants to know "What do you think about people who know a lot of grammar and theoretical knowledge

of the language, but they don't really seem to use the language they are speaking,

and as a consequence they lack confidence in speaking the language.

What can those people do, who are really proficient in the theory of the language

can do to become fluent as fast as you can?"

Well, first of all I would like to stress once again the fact that knowing grammar or knowing a lot of things about grammar rules and the culture

etc. it doesn't make an influent speaker, so there are two different things.

The fastest way to speak and become a comfortable speaker of the language is, it might sound a little bit trite, but is to speak.

Now, as I said before, first of all get your mindset right and find a person you want to talk to.

If you think, for example, that going to the country is the best solution, think again.

Because if you spend some time in the country, but you don't do it the right way, you might not learn

as fast as you thought. When you speak with a lot of people

say, thirty people a day, cause you are in the country and you have multiple activities you have to engage in etc.

The problem is that all these conversations tend to be superficial, because you don't know that person. To me, quality is much better than quantity

meaning that, instead of trying to interact with native speakers and say in supermarkets or in shops, which is

important, obviously. I would say, on top of that, just find yourself a language partner with whom you can have

great and interesting conversation, that revolves around your persona, and you can ask him or her interesting questions.

So, first, find a language partner. Secondly, you can meet them face to face in a bar with a notebook or use Skype

which is an amazing technology. And once you do that, in order to become a comfortable speaker, obviously you have to

well, one thing is that if you have a good environment, positive vibes, so to say, if you get the positive vibes from the person you are talking to

you are more than willing not only to talk, but also to share your feelings etc.

So, first of all find yourself a person you like talking to. Second, one of the piece of the advice, that I consider

the most useful is to get out of your comfort zone. People consider language learning as sometimes as a performance

they are scared of making mistakes, they are scared of not being able to say a word, they are scared of pauses and "ahm...ehm...."

you know when people try to say that and they find it embarrassing. And I would say, try to get out of your comfort zone as soon as possible

and by that I mean try to say things you can not say. Now, one might retort, if you don't know anything or you just start

with the language, you don't know how to use words, you don't know how to use expressions etc.

But you have a language partner giving you that, if you don't how do you say that you can simply

ask how do you say that? And that person turns into a live vocabulary, that "spouts" immediately words and expressions

and also gives you examples of that, then you can record and you can use later

So, at the beginning you might struggle obviously , because you don't know words, but it goes extremely fast

after 3-4 sessions you are already able to talk about simple things, about your life, that is interesting for you

and you can engage in conversations. And if you step out of your comfort zone all the time you will learn so much faster.

So, the idea is that, you know, you are scared of "Uhms" etc.etc. You have to consider the fact that each and every one of us

does that, it is a natural process, you have to go through it. You have to struggle to learn. Because the

brain learns by struggling. Every time we struggle, every time we grasp for a word that we have at the back

of our minds, there are neural networks that form or reinforce or get stronger, because we are making an effort

to remember them. At the begging it is difficult, obviously, as in every process. But it gets easier and easier the more you like it

So, to recap, find a language partner, find a person you like talking to, decide some interesting topics, and not only topics, that are external to your person, but try

to talk about yourself, you know, my name is, I live here, simple things at the beginning and then you expand them.

-Hey, why did you learn Japanese?- Oh, because I like the culture, I like manga. Oh, let's talk a little bit about manga

It doesn't matter how complex something is, it looks complex, you think "Oh my God, I have to talk about mangas! It's going to be complicated!"

But you can break it down into smaller chunks. Everything can be done in a difficult way, the difficult way or

the easy way. And the easy way is to put one sentence after the other, very simple things. Think about I want to conveyed this message: subject, verb, object, and then you try to say it

And by doing that, you learn extremely fast. I have a lot of students right now and they all adopted this technique and it works fabulously with each and everyone of them

So, it is not about the ability of the single person, it is about the way to communicate and the way to approach communication, that really makes things take off.