Learning a language, as it turns out, is nothing at all like riding a bike.

It’s not easy. You can’t just pick up where you left off after taking a break. Most frustratingly, there’s no end point, ever. There’s no box to check when it’s suddenly over, and BAM, you’ve put in the required hours and acquired that skill and are now officially fluent.

Instead… you just have to keep plugging away. Practice, practice, practice. You feel like a moron most of the time until you finally just let go of the fear of looking stupid and embrace it. Even then, you still have bad days.

It’s not even consistent. There’s no direct progression from “absolute beginner” to “advanced speaker,” no way to consistently gauge your progress step by step — instead it’s just a series of increasingly frustrating and long-lasting plateaus. Every once in awhile, you have a moment of breakthrough… and then it’s back to the daily struggle again. (Maybe that, more than anything else, is the beauty of language classes — that sequence of numbers gives you a sense of progress and victory.)

I suppose I should have been prepared for this from all of my years studying German, but German was a totally different experience for me. I went through the motions of keeping up with my classes, but I was never especially motivated to learn. So this year is the first time I’ve found myself paying attention to (and, frankly, obsessing over) my progress.

Fortunately, I’ve had a network of friends this year who are all long-time language students and teachers. If we hadn’t been able to talk about all of this, if I hadn’t known that all of my plateauing and periodic burn-outs were normal parts of the process, I think I would have given up a long time ago.

As it is, I still have days when the simplest of errands make me want to pull my hair out or crawl back under the covers and cry. Those are the days when I’m most hateful (and later, most grateful) to actually be living in France — because I made the commitment, and there’s no way out. If I want to eat, if I want the electricity to stay on, then I can’t give up no matter how frustrated I get.

And there are moments of victory. Sometimes I will completely psych myself out about running a simple errand, like picking up a package from the post office — and then I get there, and I get through it without any problems at all and understand everything (and even better — they understand me!), and I’m a little amazed. Lately it’s been phone calls — the rapid-fire French of solicitors reading a script. I’m always a little panicked at first, but if I just take a deep breath and listen, usually I know what they’re saying. The more that happens, the easier it is to stop trying to translate and just trust my instincts that I understand the greater meaning. There’s nothing like the thrill of actuallycommunicating, especially after you’ve become accustomed to running into a wall.

Anyway, the point is… I’ve come to realize that this is going to be a long process that won’t end just because I leave France. I need to stop thinking about French (and German, for that matter) as a skill that I can check off and be done with. Sure, I can pass my translation exam and move on from that requirement, but that’s just the beginning of my actual need for French skills. No matter how frustrated or bored or burnt-out I get, I’ve got to find ways to stay interested… and just practice, practice, practice.