[wes1350]

Author here, didn’t expect to see this here again after two years!

I guess I’ll give a quick update on how things have been since this article was written. I haven’t used or studied French much since then, and have gotten quite rusty, though I’ve had a few conversations fully in French in the last few months and can still maintain a conversation. I have been thinking of picking up French again soon, as traveling to a French speaking country becomes more of an option.

I also did roughly the same thing with my Spanish in the following year, with similar results, though I’d say I probably reached a solid B1.5 or weak B2 after a year (due to COVID I was unable to take the proficiency test and lost some motivation to continue studying to a high level as a result.)

My recommendations are still largely the same, though I haven’t used these resources (e.g. Duolingo) since I stopped studying a while back. And as others have noted, for other languages, particularly those that are less closely related to English (e.g. Japanese), you’ll have to follow a different path to achieve the same proficiency. However, language learning resources are getting better constantly, so you can certainly still learn quite a lot without total, in-person immersion, as I did!

[DyslexicAtheist]

I like to think learning it is "easy", not getting rusty is the hard part :)

Since I left France the only way to maintain motivation is continue reading French books (OMG there is so much to chose from). But bittersweet having to make a choice as I now want to dive into Italian. And so with every hour I spend on Italian I see my previous skill and speed with which I could form a French sentence wane ...

The best thing about language is the vast ocean of superb material to chose from as you dive in. It's like a honeymoon phase with the country and its people.

Spending a whole year learning and then let yourself get rusty is almost like spending 12 months on crafting a magic key then throwing it away before entering the castle. Not that there is anything wrong with "learning for learning sake" but I know the feeling when you can literally see it slipping from your grasp and still can't stop it.

French Spanish English maybe not so much because it's everywhere so practicing it is easy. But many languages you have to actually be there if you want any chance at all of being good at it. I liked being able to brag about what rare, exotic languages (for a European) I was able to converse fluently in. After leaving these countries, breaking up with girlfriends, change of social circles, etc I felt like a fraud every time somebody introduced me with "and he is fluent in <xyz> can you believe it" ... the conversation had to quickly be corrected by "oh I'm totally rusty" which got the response of "oh don't be modest I am sure bla bla" which made me regret that the whole thing ever came up. Putting much effort into languages is quite a humbling experience.

[wes1350]

What you say is very relatable. I did a bit of reading in French after this article, though I haven’t kept up with it. A huge motivation for me while learning was that I wanted to experiment with living in France for at least a year or two after finishing school, to be able to experience living abroad, while speaking a foreign language, before “life happens” and I get too rooted here in the US. That didn’t end up happening (which in hindsight was very fortunate, as my time in France would’ve been severely compromised due to COVID), but is still something I would consider in the future. Of course, visits will certainly be an option in the future.

I’d definitely still say the experience was worth it, given that I still have much of my previous ability and can probably relearn it rather quickly. It certainly is a bit sad to see your skills degrade over time, and this has certainly contributed to some fear of picking up the language again, but that probably goes for most skills and hobbies anyways.

And as you said, I have the same experience whenever someone asks me about my language learning experience —- I always mention how rusty I am these days, and there’s a nagging feeling I need to shake off the rust so I don’t have to say that anymore. But in the end, I guess we have to settle for doing whatever we think is best in the moment, and if it’s important enough, we can always pick it up again some day.

[lhorie]

Native speakers are often very forgiving about rustiness (even enthusiastic that you've taken the time to learn the language at all). I tend to think of rustiness as a function of how actually invested I am in the culture.

At this point, I suffer from the opposite problem: I've invested so much of my life into english (which is a second language for me) that I'm now losing vocabulary in my native tongue. I don't even regret it that much; language isn't really about the bragging rights, and how one feels about language shouldn't center around their ability to use it as a party trick IMHO. Instead, I think a healthier way to think about languages is to just see them as what they are: tools to communicate with the people around you. What you said about doing what's best in the moment is pretty spot on. Live in the moment, and let your language skills reflect from that.

[VSerge]

Hi, first off thanks for sharing, both the original post, and on your practice / rustiness since. Would or has any game-based learning made sense for you? I mean by this either playing RPG or story-rich games in French for practice, or playing games made for learning/practicing (like Conjugo Speed for conjugation).

Bravo et bonne continuation!

[Volrath89]

The good thing is... it's not that hard to get your level back. I went from A0 to B2 in German in about a year, 9 years ago. After that I lived for 1 year in Germany then left the country and didn't use nor practiced any German again for 8 years.

A couple of months ago I booked a Lingoda sprint and my first German B1 class was embarrassing. Had to go back to A2. I had forgotten so many basic words, but it took only a few classes to go back to B1 and only a few more to go to B2 (I knew it was time to go up when I felt my classmates were speaking unbearable slow).

I feel like my grammar is still worse compared to 9 years ago but my understanding and speaking are almost back to where they were before. Definitely good to know it only takes a couple of months to get your level back. Oh and I think this time my English hasn't suffered that much, since I'm not a native English speaker.

[Osiris]

Around 2000 I spent 2 years in Mexico as a missionary. I became fluent enough that when people called on the phone they thought I was Mexican.

When I returned it the US, for the first few months I actually felt more comfortable in Spanish than English. I spoke Spanglish for a while.

I went to school and studied Latin American studies and Spanish.

Without daily practice I lost increasingly more vocabulary. I can listen to spoken Spanish and understand it pretty well but I have a hard time speaking or writing because of a lack of recall of vocabulary.

I have a feeling if I went back to being immersed in the language daily I could become comfortable again within a month.

[tomcam]

I have decided to look at the situation this way: learning it once means that if I really need to, I can learn it again. That’s pretty cool. Also, one thing I have learned is that a lot of people who say they know more than one language frequently don’t know the secondary languages very well at all.

[willlma]

How do you find books? I've lived in the US for a decade after growing up going to school in French and find it hard to find books I enjoy reading. Not knowing many French speakers means I don't get book recommendations like I do for English.

[gramie]

One resource you may not be aware of is https://languagetransfer.org. It is easily the best language acquisition system I've ever used (I did the Spanish course). I've previously learned French, German, Sesotho and Japanese using a variety of techniques, and I wish Language Transfer had been around then!

The courses are entirely audio (using a convenient app or downloadable MP3 files) and it all runs on donations.

[TheHypnotist]

And you can speak each of those fluently?

[gramie]

I could at one time. I have lived in Germany, Lesotho and Japan after growing up in Canada. German and Sesotho are rusty because I haven't been exposed to them in decades. I still sometimes find myself occasionally coming up with Sesotho when I'm trying to remember a word in another language.

[leveraction]

I'm so jealous. I tried to learn French a few years ago. I went after it pretty hard with Pimsleur for at least a year and then eventually hired an in person French tutor but we did not click. Things basically collapsed after that.

It was nice to hear about your success with online tutors. Finding speakers was essentially impossible for me. South Carolina is not exactly a hot bed of French speakers.

You may have inspired me to pick up the torch again. Look out Chamonix, here I come!

[JPLeRouzic]

> Look out Chamonix, here I come!

There are beautiful landscapes on the seaside as well!

[gpspake]

Thanks for the update. I think it's healthy and encouraging to hear stories about people who deep-learn something for a while, get most of what they need out of it and move on to the next thing. All learning is good and nobody should feel guilty about putting things down - you can always pick them up later if you need to :)

[werber]

Thanks for writing this. I hadn’t seen it Before and I needed to today. I hope you’re thriving

[hugs]

How much time did you spend on Duolingo per day at the beginning?

[wes1350]

At the very beginning, just enough to maintain a streak. Once I started getting into it, I spent quite a bit of time on it, up to a couple of hours a day on average at the peak. It’s worth noting this is on the desktop version, so that meant a lot of typing actual sentences. I’m not sure how Duolingo works these days and if anything’s changed, so I’m not sure if I would do things differently if I were to be learning today.

[hugs]

Thanks. The French tree is now quite large. I'm currently about 15% done with the entire tree, but 2/3 through the A1 content. Sometimes 15 minutes a day when I'm not feeling super motivated, an hour or two on other days. I'm thinking about taking the DELF A1 test through Alliance Française as a progress check and to get used to the test process. Don't know if I'll get all the way to B2 in one year, but your story is very motivating!