I have a bad habit of thinking that my French is stagnating. I have to keep forcing myself to look for signs, no matter how minute, that it is, indeed, worth the time and effort to keep going to class.

Just today I noticed that the person to whom I was speaking waited, wait for it, a WHOLE FIVE SENTENCES of discourse in French before she switched to English. In my mind, this is an achievement.

How do the rest of you measure your improvement?

1. You continue to speak in french at them even when they are answering in english.

2. If the answer in english is actually answering what you say in french then at least you are being understood even if they think you aren't very good, in which case keep speaking french them so you get to practice

Keep on speaking French and don't let others use you to improve their English! You may have small accent but, hey, so do others who speak English. So continue with the French. If you let them stop you, you won´t progress. Then you´ll start to tell jokes and philosophize and use the conductive and subjunctive and plusquam perfect easily and understand the local expressions and words.

I have not starved here in Belgium, language skills seem adequate.

Garry, I live for the day when I can tell jokes in French. I still make mistakes all the time between l'imparfait and passe compose.

By not realising which language I'm actually using. I once swore blind to a friend that the film I'd taped for her was in english, but I was wrong!
Mind you, I've had over half a lifetime in which to practice my french......

Maybe we should start a joke thread in French

Dear Odile,
I think you'll find my french is the joke!
Although I've been here for over thirty years I found that it stopped 'improving' around 1990.

I have noticed that I sometimes can't remember the word for something IN ENGLISH now, so that's something, right? I have to ask my husband, "what is that thing, that thing, you know, that you grab around the head of a screw to unscrew it?"

He's, like, "um, pliers?"'

Language Certification, Zertifikat Deutsch B1 in my case

Here in the Neuchatel Jura, the local jokes where always about this poor guy called Ouin-Ouin- so-called because he talks with a bloked nose. Poor chap was not too bright. My dad used to tell those very innocent jokes so well, I can hear him now (he died 3 years ago aged 96). Here is one example.

En plein hiver, Ouin-Ouin gèle sur le Pold (la rue Principale de la Chaux-de-Fonds) et il passe devant l'Armée du Salut. Il décide de rentrer pour se réchauffer et s'assied tout au fond de la salle. Une femme est sur le podium et parle de sa vie passée. Elle explique:

Hier j'étais à Satan, mais aujourd'hui, je suis à Jésus...

Ouin-Ouin lui crie 'et demain, t'es libre?.

Innocent days

When I say or think something without even realizing I said it/thought it in the foreign language.

When I write my grocery list in the foreign language.

When I dream in the foreign language, then I know I own it!

(Still very far from all the above in German)

I am curious, Anjela. Did you just reach a certain point and say, "OK, I've learned enough to get by" or what? (Please don't take offense, I am truly wondering.)

Having only been in French class six months now, I know that my skills are improving slowly, but I have a long, long way to go. I am frustrated b/c I do better trying to express myself rather than understanding other people who are speaking.

I wondered if those of you who have mastered a second language could tell me at what point you finally stopped "translating" what you read or heard into your mother tongue as you attempted to understand it? I cannot seem to move toward reading or hearing French and understanding without doing this translation thing in my head.

(Apologies to OP as I am not trying to derail; this seemed like a good thread within which to ask this question .)

I cannot tell you the exact turning point in time, but as a general reference: with the other languages, if I lived in a "_insert language_ only" environment (meaning I would be speaking _insert language_ exclusively all day, everyday) it generally took me between 3-6 months to a full year. If I was switching languages, more time.

With German, it seems to be taking a lot more time, which I attribute to several factors: I still predominantly speak something else most of the time, people around me generally don't speak the same language I am learning in class, and finally, since, in a way, I am not "forced" to use it, I become more lazy

P.S. I am sure you're doing great!

Ah yes, remembered one....you talk to people and do not realize you were using the wrong language. I swear, after a while, you think it and your tongue says it, and you don't know which language it was that came out...Weird! They just look at you in a glaze and say: " you just talked to me in German or Spanish. Can you repeat it in English?" This happens a lot if you are speaking two or three languages to different people, one after the other.

In German, I gauge if I am improving or not by the relative difficulty of understanding the TV news. I feel like a superstar when I understand, which hasn't happened a lot.

In French, I no longer have confidence issues about making myself understood and understanding people, but I always feel like I could have said something "better"- like made a prettier sentence or something, I don't feel I have a consistent command over stuff like different registers or levels of formality. I feel like i am stagnating so I have pulled out my textbooks!

that's a good question! i think the more you learn the more you realize you don't know and you start to be more aware of the mistakes you make so you feel like you aren't getting it at all.

i can tell it's improving as people tell me that i speak well! lately, i've had major compliments on my french so it makes me feel that i come across as though i'm understood, even though it doesn't always feel that way. also, once i noticed that i stopped hesitating and could just go on fluently with french speakers during a conversation. that feels good!

but, that being said i do get enough of the polite nods and looks that denote that people don't understand but they see i'm trying. i still have nights when i say to my husband, these people look at me and are polite and nice, but they have no idea how much smarter i am then they think- that's frustrating. because no matter how hard you try to use the little you know, no matter how much others know it's not your first language and you're learning, the lack of ability to express yourself as cleverly and intelligently as you can in your native language, seems, to others, to mean you are simple and possibly a bit dim(especially if they know your american )- even if it's just a language level!

edit---- this is even worse when these same people ask you for a translation in english and you just can't think of it- doh!

why is this thread about French?

Heres another: you can follow several different conversations in several languages simultaneously among guests dining at tables around you without translating. You simply know what they said and its understood. You don't even think: you just understand. However, if you think its getting worse, its actually good, because you are out of your comfort zone and improving. You can never be good enough!