One of the most scary things when you move to another country is certainly the language barrier. I'm not gonna lie. Even if you did a language course before or learnt the language at school for some years or think you are good at learning languages in general, it's gonna be tough but you are gonna figure it out! This is for all of you trying to learn Italian!
Actually it was much harder for me starting to communicate with friends (at that stage mainly my boyfriend's...). For one there were always many of them. How are you supposed to understand a word if 10 Italians are talking at the same time? And then I met them usually at a bar...Nope that background noise didn't help! But all that didn't even matter, because until I had assembled a sentence in my head to contribute to the conversation it was time to go home!!
It was super frustrating! I'm usually rather talkative and had many things to say but instead I was standing there nodding like the nodding dog sipping silently on my wine. I know it's pathetic but I cried quite often out of frustration. I thought everybody would think I'm just not the ot the brightest bulb in the box....
So if you are trying to learn Italian and you get frusted trust me, the „I don't give damn“-moment is gonna come and it's gonna get easier and once you've got the hack of the grammar, treat yourself to an episode of Masterchef Italia and watch Joe Bastianich fail the grammar exam ;-) We are in good company!