i am a college student currently studying japanese. i never had any interest in the language before, but it just seemed so interesting one day while i was looking at this japanese drama on youtube that i started getting more and more into it.

i have been studying for three semesters, and i guess because i am just so driven in learning the language, i am one of the best students in class in terms of performance. but i know i am nowhere to be fluent.

my question is, how do people speak it so fluently and quickly? of course the japanese people speak it well because it's their language, but whenever i'm listening to people speaking japanese, they speak so fast that it seems crazy they don't even need one second to think about it!

i know practicing with native speakers improves the language drastically, but... i just don't understand how people can do it so well!

even when i listen to tapes of japanese lessons, they speak so quick, and i can't catch up!