I've established the habit of reading in French and the past posts in this thread were refreshingly motivating to give this language the love it deserves :) I also attempted a phone call with a friend in France (in French while we usually converse in English or Arabic) and even though I could follow and carry a decent conversation (and managed to do so enough to establish an emotional bond and get a few laughs out of her) the imperfections of my grammar and the lack of spontaneous vocab available at the tip of my tongue were glaring enough to infuriate me mid-conversation. In languages I truly speak, I love to zoom in on just the right nuance during a good convo. In French I feel like a confused baby, that can very hesitantly mumble about their favourite primary colour.
The personality traits I enjoy the most about myself just fall into dust on my tongue and it's a constant, tiresome redefining of myself. It's a journey to accept that there is a rough patch were you will simply sound dumb to native speakers and some of them will literally register you as dumb and there's no escape until you push through. You're at the mercy of another person's patience. But whenever I speak with somebody with an accent or struggling with words, I remember how they must feel and I gush over with kindness and fondness even when there's time pressure involved. It's the least I can do i think.
@Nilitch:
The issue about learning a language that isn't English is often that it doesn't have a soft-power. I mean, when you learn English you have tons of TVshows and movies and whatnot to help you to improve yourself. You kinda have that too for Japanese with anime
You always have radio shows but it doesn't have subtitles and the language is usually too literary. You don't get to learn useful expressions for daily life.
TVshows and movies help people a lot when they have to learn English
And anyway, everyone should watch La Reine Margot (Queen Margot), whether you're learning French or not. Even the trailer is
I feel you. It feels like cheating because you didn't even "work hard" for it but its just fell in your bag for free. That's why I envy kids from Luxembourg, since they pop out of school and be like "Oops, ech speak fünf lÃnguas. Quoi the Fuck?" I'm trying to emulate it by watching netflix only in French (the language feature is a blessing) and playing videogames exclusively on French for French background noise (I've grown so fond of French "Geralt de Riv", that he is my default voice when I think of the character; what a smooth voice actor!) And hell yes, your recommendation just hit the right spot. So MERCI for that :)
Talking of soft powers, I wonder if later generations will be raised with another background language. English is omnipresent of course, but Korean language is gaining track via K-pop and I wonder what will happen once China gets a full grasp of the cultural power dormant within pop culture and gets the skill to properly market it to the western tastes.