Learning French

Although I was able to learn French fast, it took me considerably longer to master speaking a foreign language. A lot of people think it is hard to learn how to speak French, but I’ve always had a sort of natural facility for languages. I grew up speaking German and English in my household, so I was already bilingual before I even tried speaking French. I actually started off pretty casually. I had a friend who was a native French speaker, and she agreed to be my conversation partner.

Overseas courses
Still, I never mastered how to speak French until I finally took a course overseas. I did a study abroad program, staying in a French academy in Paris. When you have to know how to speak French just to get by, order food, or get directions, you can pick it up pretty quickly. The desire to learn is so strong when you’re trying to immerse yourself in a culture that it comes almost naturally.

Practice makes perfect
It is true that the more you work on something, the faster you pick it up. If you work on a new language for several hours every day, it will take you no time at all to get the basics down. You might never master it and speak truly fluently, but you can at least make yourself understood.