Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?
My relationship with French has never followed the conventional route.
At school I struggled. French O-Level was not a success, and later attempts to gain formal qualifications, including further study with the Open University, also fell short. On paper, I might have appeared to be a poor language learner.
The reality was rather different.
The turning point came during my Lower Sixth year when I took part in a French exchange. For the first time, French stopped being a school subject and became a living language. I returned independently during the summer holidays and spent time immersed among French teenagers. Instead of memorising vocabulary lists, I found myself needing French to communicate, make friends and navigate everyday life.
My gap year accelerated this process. From December until May I worked in a four-star hotel in Val d’Isère, ostensibly as a bilingual employee, though in truth I was far from fluent when I arrived. Living and working in a French-speaking environment forced me to listen carefully, speak constantly and develop confidence. Every interaction became a lesson.
Over time I discovered that I learned languages most effectively through immersion and curiosity rather than formal study. I began reading French newspapers, history books and novels. Later, I spent eighteen months working in French television, where language became part of my professional life. By then I was thinking, speaking and operating in French for much of the day.
My spoken and reading French became far stronger than my written French. Even today I can read complex texts and hold detailed conversations more comfortably than I can write formally. That reflects how I learned: through listening, conversation, work and reading rather than through grammar exercises and examinations.
More recently I spent over three years using the Lingvist app, which greatly expanded my vocabulary and reinforced what I had learned through experience. It helped fill gaps in my knowledge and gave structure to a language that I had largely acquired informally.
Looking back, French taught me something important about learning itself. I was never particularly successful at learning French in a classroom, but I became proficient when I had a reason to use it. The language was acquired through relationships, work, travel, reading and necessity. In many ways, I learned French not by studying it, but by living it.
These days I follow as many French language channels as I do English: the weather, news, skiing, and culture. And we watch French tv series and films (subtitles in French if at all).
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