20050809_eiger_monch_24: Image: Ai@ce via FlickrPart 43 of the Poligo Guide to Learning a Language.

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SECTION 4: This section explains how to divide the language into smaller parts and how to learn each part.

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After some time (and it can be a very long time) at the intermediate level, you will feel that you learning has slowed down. You will begin to plateau. It might be that you are reaching the advanced level. When you are advanced in a language, you need change your strategies to continue to improve your language skills.

Before we talk about the techniques you should use when you are advanced, let's check if you are advanced. If most of these following points are true, you are advanced:

1. When you read things you like to read in the target language, there are one to five new words per page, but rarely more.
2. You can talk for as long as you like, about most subjects, even if not perfectly.
3. When you are talking and you don't know a word you need, you can almost always use the target language to describe the word you are looking for and get it from the person you are talking to.
4. When native speakers are speaking to you, you understand almost all of what they say.
5. When native speakers use a word or phrase you don't know, you are able to ask them what it means and understand the answer.
6. You almost never find yourself lost in the conversation (except for when the topic is very difficult or specialised).
7. When native speakers are talking to each other, you can usually follow the main idea of their conversation (so long as you are familiar with the subject they are talking about), even if you might not be able to jump in and participate at the same level.
8. There is not such a big difference between the way native speakers talk to you and the way they talk to each other. That means native speakers don't need to change their language to match your level.
9. You can talk quite comfortably in the target language about roughly the same kinds of topics that you usually talk about in your native language.

If you can honestly say that almost all of the above points are true, you are an advanced speaker of the language.
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NEXT: Part 44 — Why people stop making progress.