When I try and relay - both to people I know (such as colleagues) who are interested in learning a language but never got on with traditional methods, or those just starting out here - I've always found the analogy of what it's like can be difficult.

I've seen things like "brushing your teeth" thrown around. You do a little each day so that it becomes habit, to the point you almost don't notice you're doing it. With that time compounding... but, I haven't found those kind of examples really work. Sure, you can make a habit of a little bit of language learning a day but if we're talking at least 30-60 minutes a day to make real progress, that's a whole lot of brushing...

Another analogy is to going to the gym to build muscle. Which is spot on, but not necessarily helpful. Because we're saying this thing that is a journey that will take time is like another thing that is a slow journey of showing up and putting in the effort over time. It's exactly like that, but I'm not sure that helps illuminate what it's like.

So...

Like playing a video game

Because: * You start out not able to do much. You're terrible at the game. You don't necessarily know what's going on. * As you progress through the game, you can do more. You become a lot better. But this takes the form of learning the game mechanics, and things like levelling / skill building / getting better equipment. This is like the slow process of building your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary through CI. * Crucially, you're enjoying it as you go. To the point you still enjoy it whilst you suck, and don't really notice the incremental improvements until you look back. In a video game, this might be going back to an area where enemies were once hard, and going through them like a knife through butter. In CI, it's going back to a DS video you thought was really hard and comprehending it easily. You're not desperate to get to the next level or finish the game, always looking at the game time remaining. You're enjoying the journey and the experience. Like enjoying the process.

Obviously, there will always be doubts. I for one can be overly-analytical and worry when my experience doesn't align with others, or when people seem to be agreeing on how helpful something was (e.g. watching Peppa Pig) that I just can't stomach. But putting in the time with comprehensible content does show improvements, bit by bit. Having something to benchmark against is definitely helpful along the way too.