In the last few months, I changed from one University of the Third Age French class to another. It was unfortunate that I left the first one even though I enjoyed the class however, it reached a point that I realised I needed MORE conversation than grammar classes.

Don’t be under the illusion that you’re learning a language if you don’t practice speaking it to anyone. You can do your DuoLingo apps, complete grammar exercises or watch French movies but if you’re not speaking it, it’s all for nothing.

I’m just saying how it is.

“No speak, no learn”.

So I changed U3A to an Advanced French class that goes for 1.5 hours every fortnight. The people running it are not teachers but French natives who have asked that we only talk about whatever we want as long as it’s in French for the duration of the class.

Pas de probleme, I said.

As well as this class, I have weekly hour-long chats with my friend who is fluent in French and lives in Spain; as well as another hour every Thursday with Nathalie. All up about 3.5 hours of French conversation every week.

As of the 10th October, I’ve added yet another French Conversation class with My French Journey, a French house in Hampton that runs various courses and workshops for people in the local area. That’ll be an additional hour and a half totalling 5 hours of conversation in the week.

I think that’ll be enough, yes?

(I’ve even started using French mannerisms in English, such as the sentence above).

Where was I going with this post?

Ah oui.

Today, I rocked up to the U3A class and I found out that I was the only participant attending along with the two facilitators. Alarm bells. This freaked me out because while everyone was away due to holidays or other engagements, it meant that for the next hour and a half, the facilitators would have to endure me hacking their French language.

However, I carried on. I figured that an hour and a half would cost me a lot of money to have it as a private class and here I was with an opportunity to just talk the leg off these people and get FEEDBACK.

I cannot believe that I talked. And talked. And talked.

Cremation, funerals, songs, Gilbert Becaud, goat cheese, Greek cuisine, environment and waste was all discussed during the time. We even had a break for a cup of coffee and the French conversation continued.

In all that time, I didn’t sweat or panic. I just talked. If I made a mistake, they corrected me but over time, they weren’t correcting me that much despite me thinking, “geez, I must be mixing all my words up,” but they kept saying to me that my French was fine.

What the?

In hindsight, this is what amazes me is that I have achieved my goal of speaking French to fluency. I only ever wanted to learn the language to the point that I could have a conversation with anyone on the street so to speak – and I have achieved that. I just spoke for an hour and a half on a variety of topics.

Part of me wonders if I should sit for the DELF exams and see if I can get a certificate of proficiency for the language but another part of me couldn’t be bothered. After all, how would a piece of paper help me unless I’m going for a job in the EU or somesuch?

I put in a lot of hard work to get to this point and I now have this beautiful language as a skill that I will continue to hone and improve over time. I can’t wait for the day I return to France and have the opportunity to speak it in country (despite my husband who never wants to go back there but I’ll just have to figure out how to twist his arm).

My mother asked me today, “what’s the next language you will learn?” and I had to think hard about how to respond to this. I would prefer to delve deeper into the Greek language more so than any other language. No other language attracts me more than Greek or French.

However, I think it’ll be German in a few years.

Andrew wants to learn German and the best way to learn I told him – and the quickest – would be full immersion. (That’s because I really want another trip to Munich and detest the idea of learning a language through an app. An in-country experience is SO MUCH BETTER).

So my plan is to go and have a prolonged stay in Munich and find one of the Goethe Institutes to do an intensive German-speaking program knowing full well that the Germans will only end up speaking English to us the moment we open our mouths.

But hey, I get a trip out to Germany and that’s all I care about for now.

From Germany, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump into France.

C’est tout.