I've lived in France for 11 years, it seems longer. However, you would have thought that by now I would be fluent in French, sadly not.
Over the years languages have always been a struggle for me, English included. "Yes we had noticed Steve, but we didn't want to say anything" !!!
I don't mind admitting that it took me two attempts to pass my English 'O' level. Then working as an engineer in a job where I hardly wrote anything other than fault dockets for 10 years, which were very short form writing, didn't exactly help me!
I did some French classes at school, but I never did get to grasp much of the language then. I didn't visit France until I was in my mid-twenties. I started doing a weekly evening class a couple of years before we moved here in 2010, but it wasn't enough. I would be scared of venturing out on my own at first. Not a problem now.
Alison is a fluent French and German speaker; she ran her own translation company in UK for a number of years. She is a natural when it comes to languages, but the technical stuff she leaves to me, so we make a good couple I suppose!
Alison has tried teaching me, it didn't go well! I have also been to classes here as well. Again not enough really.
Then along came lock down and classes stopped. I did some more daily lessons with Alison. Then I thought I will try a different approach...
I started learning with Duolingo, it's an app, and website with a very good, structured learning approach. Finally, I seem to be making progress. I do about 30-45 minutes each morning sometimes more.
Whilst the app is very good, I still like to jot things down to help cement my learning,
I also remembered some inserts I was given a few years ago.
I don't know who produced them, but they seem to cover 'business French' as well as everyday phrases
