A couple of months before coming back to Spain I took a trip to Norway to visit a Spanish friend who was doing her Erasmus there. I flew to Oslo and then I had to buy another ticket for Bergen. So I found myself in front of a desk trying to buy a ticket and speaking in English. I was having quite a bad time of it; to the point that I was unable to ask a simple question such as “How much is it?”
The kind and helpful sales assistant suddenly asked me: “Do you speak any other language?” As you may guess, the normal predictable answer should have been “Spanish?” Not for me in that moment. I said “French!” I felt really relieved when she said “Sure, no problem” and I could buy my ticket in French. I can say I had acquired an extremely high level in French. Unfortunately, until a few months ago, I have not spoken French for many years, and my level of fluency went down and I forgot a lot of vocabulary.
Right now I feel more or less fluent, as I can hold a conversation with a native speaker, but my pronunciation is far from what it was and I often have to think hard to find a particular word or think of another way to express an idea.
The good part is that thanks to Facebook, some months ago I again met my French friend and we have spoken several times, so I have both rekindled a friendship and have found the motivation to begin improving my French so as to be able to communicate with him with the same or almost the same level of fluency I had many years ago. To sum up, which is the best approach to master a language?
