I've got a vermillion parsh from looking at that Canadian actress.
LOL!!!!
I sent a video of mine to Primemuscle!
Lord help me. How long did it take you to be fully fluent? I take it you learned it as a young child? I'm trying to become fully fluent but I doubt it's possible as I started as an adult. I'd probably have to live in France or marry one of them to truly become bilingual.
I was enrolled in French Immersion from the start of elementary school. I have a late birthday, so I started kindergarten at age four. But I can't recall if any French was taught then.
I did start learning French for sure in grade one, when I would have been five years old [Sept. 1987], and I took French up to high school, but didn’t pursue it in university. So I stopped speaking it regularly around 2002, when I was tasked with some Quebecois soldiers at the G8 Summit for a month.
In French Immersion in Canada, it is [or was] 50% instruction in French, and 50% in English. I may have been fluent by grade six, but I definitely was by grade eight. I'm perfectly bilingual now in reading and comprehension, although there are times when I may forget a word [but would remember it if it was said]. You wouldn't be able to distinguish me from someone born in Quebec, or from a French household in Louisiana.
Here's the thing though, Phantom - regarding your last point:
There was a Jewish dating coach named Eben Pagan who went by the pen name David D'Angelo. He said that it is a myth that it is harder to learn languages when we are older. It just seems easier, because we learn our first language by default. But when we are older, the act of studying makes it seem harder.
Pagan said it is not harder, and that adults can pick up languages remarkably fast.
I would suspect that if you REALLY committed to learning French or another language by literally spending eight hours a day reading it, writing in it, watching podcasts while watching the screen intently and reading lips, and possibly finding the French version of Getbig, that you could have general proficiency in a month.
Enough to watch a movie in that language, and understand it without assistance.
The refinements would come with time.
But who spends eight hours a day dedicated to a goal like that?
For me - the key is not let my French lapse. If I went a few years without speaking it, I'd likely get rusty.
You mention learning French, Phantom - and I feel the same way about Italian.
As an adult, it may be hard to ever sound like a new language is your first language [consider: Arnold].
I've been speaking French since 1987, which is the only reason I'm perfectly bilingual. If I visited G_Thang in Louisiana, people would think I'm Cajun/Acadian.
In fact, I'd say that Canadian French speakers from outside Quebec most closely sound like Louisiana French speakers - like this cute elderly Cajun couple:
