Le rêve impossible

 I've decided to add a second post today, because I've come to some tentative conclusions about my language learning and wanted to roll it around in my mind for awhile.  The best way to do that, I find, is to write about it.

   

The last several months of juggling French and Italian have forced me to make certain assumptions about learning either of these languages with at least a moderate fluency.

French, Italian, or none of the above?

I've concluded that it is impossible (and I'm not exaggerating) to learn to comprehend spoken French without living in France or at least living with a native speaker for many years.  Speaking French is not the issue here.  My pronunciation is passable, if not good, and I can form most of the basic structures one needs to carry on a simple conversation. It's understanding a native Frenchperson speaking it that is so discouraging.

When I watch an Italian TV show, even if it's original Italian and not dubbed English, I find that even though my Italian vocabulary is much more limited than my French one, I can understand so many more of the words and sentences I'm hearing than I can when watching a similar show in French.   Conversational French, when spoken at a typical pace, is just almost a whole different language than written or very formal French.  For example, when I hear 'Qu'est-ce que se passe?' it sounds like 'Skuh-spahce?'  Of course, English speakers do exactly the same thing:  'Wasappnin? for What's happening?'.  But I don't think I'd ever get the hang of it, without being exposed to it every day and having someone around to do a little patient translating and explaining.  The other day I heard it's common in France to call a week-end le wee.

In some ways, I guess this may be a good thing, because I can continue to improve my French reading and speaking skills, but zero in on Italian vocabulary and comprehension.  Not to offend any French readers out there--I do appreciate French, but Italian has always been more attractive to me.  I think I'd be able to get to a level where I can understand spoken Italian even without too much face-to-face interaction.

But experience has shown that I may feel exactly the opposite tomorrow or the next day.  I guess I'm easily distracted.  :)