The Trails And Tribulations of French

Here I am, sitting at my desk at 3 a.m. staring at flashcards that still make no sense to me. You would think after 2 years of taking French, I would start recognizing the vocabulary. But no. For me, it never “clicked”; I did not magically become a native French speaker or a connoisseur of its culture. I thought being multilingual would benefit me, that being fluent in 3 languages would make adding a 4th that much easier. Yet, here I am sitting at my desk at 3 a.m., ranting about the difficulties of language learning instead of actually learning the language. 

Language learning clicks differently for everyone. For some, these courses give structure and discipline, like an overcharged Duolingo. For others, the words on paper and the voice on screen mush together, and we experience mass dyslexia. I am, unfortunately, neither one nor the other. 

It is often said that multilinguals pick up languages easier than monolinguals. We start recognizing the verb patterns, the genders, and the contextual scenarios a lot faster. But most importantly, we have strategies that make language learning fun and doable. One of the main foolproof strategies, however, is digital immersion. 

I was born and raised in India and studied Tamil for nearly ten years, yet I am more fluent in Hindi, a language I picked up largely through movies, songs, and friends. So, I thought I could apply the same logic to French. I started listening to French music and watching French movies, but it didn’t click. Hindi got imprinted in my brain, so why not French? 

But perhaps I was approaching French with the wrong expectations. Hindi was never a language I consciously tried to learn. I wasn’t sitting at my desk at 3 a.m. memorizing verb conjugations or questioning the grammatical gender of a table. I was simply living and breathing with the language. French, on the other hand, had become another academic obligation, another exam to pass, and another set of flashcards to resent.

Eventually, somewhere between the endless conjugations, silent pronunciations, and late-night meltdowns, I began recognizing words. Not entire conversations, and certainly not enough to confidently argue with a Parisian serveur, but enough to understand a sentence without immediately reaching for translation softwares. The progress was painfully slow, but it was progress nonetheless.

Maybe language learning isn’t always about that magical moment when everything suddenly clicks. Sometimes, it’s about collecting enough small victories that one day you realize you’re no longer starting from zero. I can survive a conversation with a native French speaker, and I can translate enough of those words to pass an exam while ranting to my friend about my lack of knowledge because the small victories didn’t grant any newfound confidence. 

Of course, whether these small victories amount to actual linguistic competence remains to be seen. Next semester, I’ll be taking French 202, my final French elective. Will I be victorious, speaking French with a newfound confidence, or find myself once again staring at flashcards at 3 a.m.? (I vote for the latter) 

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