I was in Paris for three days this week in order to have an immigration interview with the Québec Authorities. I wanted to share some insight with you guys about my trip. At the same time, as always, let me take this opportunity to once again thank the amazing Duolingo team for putting together this website, and for their great work!
I arrived at CDG on Wednesday morning and found my hotel some 300 meters from the Place de l'Étoile! I preceded to have a fantastic day, strolling down the Champs-Élysées, climbing up the Arc de Triomphe to take a look at the city from atop.
Like always, I found myself having a hard time adjusting to the sudden "change of language", but after about a half a day or so, I got more confident and I started to abandon my anglophone roots and address people in French. It's especially hard in a place like Paris, where most of the locals speak English to begin with, but it's always well worth the effort trying to speak to the locals in their native tongue.
As mentioned, the main reason for my trip to Paris was my interview with the Québec Authorities on Thursday. I had begun preparing for this interview almost half a year ago, but I still couldn't help myself from being nervous about it. Especially once the day of the interview came rolling in! There's always a lot at stake when it comes to immigration, after all.
One of the main factors of the interview was to determine my English and French language skills. Since English is my stronger language, I expected the interview to mainly take place in English, with only a few sentences in French to see how I would cope with them.
Well, as it turns out, almost three-thirds of the interview were held in French! For the mere fact that it went so well in French that we didn't even bother switching to English until around halfway through. And even then we switched back to French at the end to finalize the interview and to say our good-byes.
It went very well, to say the least, and it was an eye-opening experience:
To all the people out there who are too self-conscious and too shy about their language skills to practice them in the real world, try to jump your shadow! I know it's very hard sometimes -- it certainly took me a long time myself with French -- but it's well worth it! Even if it's just in baby steps, practicing your target language in a real-life environment is always very helpful. :)
I am now exited to announce that I am ever so closer to being able to call myself truly "trilingual". I'm not quite there yet with French (I have high standards when it comes to languages, you must know), but hopefully I'll reach my goal of being fully fluent in another year or two, once I've been able to finally settle and work in Montréal for good.
The biggest thing this whole trip has taught and shown me is that in language learning there is and will always be one huge decisive factor that comes into play. Yes, regular exercise and practice is important, so is determination and self-control. All these things need to be there. But the one big factor that's always gonna make a difference in learning a language is this: Time.
If I look at myself five years ago, where I was with my French, as well as my other languages, and then I look at myself now, all the trouble, all the hard work that went into it has been well worth it in the end. If you find yourself struggling, or if you're even on the brink of giving up and abandoning a language altogether, just try to imagine yourself in five, ten years from now and think where you'll be then. It's a nice picture, isn't it? :)
Anyway, to make a long story short, I had an pleasant three days in Paris! I hope you guys are having just as pleasant a time and hopefully an enjoyable weekend! Happy language learning everyone!
