for the love of french
for years, i’ve had a desire to be fluent in another language.
for just as many years, i’ve made exactly zero progress on it.
i tried to convince myself to learn japanese.
i tried to convince myself to become more proficient in german.
i tried to convince myself to learn italian.
i tried to convince myself to learn spanish.
i had practical reasons for – and, i thought, some level of interest in – learning all of those languages. still, nothing ever happened.
last week, in a moment of clarity, i realized why i was procrastinating.
the language i wanted to learn was french, and french seemed impractical.
when i spoke the reason out loud, it seemed so silly. why did i need a practical reason to learn french? why couldn’t i learn french simply because i wanted to?
and so i am. learning french, that is.
no convincing or forcing required.
for me, the act of learning french is an absolute pleasure. everything about it makes me happy.
it’s the best way to learn, really. i don’t know how i forgot this.
Oh, Elizabeth! Quel plaisir de lire que tu apprends le français! 😀
It’s great that you were finally able to hear what your heart was saying and to just follow it. That’s a good reminder that the underlying reasons why we’re not doing what we think we want to do can be amazingly simple…
I hope the act of learning French remains pleasurable for you, even through the weird, silly, and unnecessarily complicated parts of the language (some of which make up part of its charm, I guess).
If you ever want to get some speaking practice with a native speaker, you know where to find me! It’d be wonderful to be part of this adventure with you, my dear. <3
Merci!
I so agree. It was a good reminder to trust the process.
(And I thought of you after I posted this. I do want to practice – after I learn a bit more – so I will get in touch.)
p.s. I got the gist of your sentence! I am using Duolingo at the moment and they just had a lesson with apprend.