Learning foreign languages: A true story

Studying a foreign language at school or even at university tends to be a waste. Rarely do the students concerned progress to anything like native fluency. They are even lucky to remember enough to be useful on holiday in the country concerned. So why do it? I would generally advise against it.

There was a young Australian girl, however, who decided to make a big effort to learn French. She studied it at High School and later at university. Why did she do that? Because her "ex" was a keen student of German. Good female logic.

And her efforts had some success. She learnt enough French to move to France and become an English teacher there. With her Australian background, she also of course had some interest in England and holidayed there from time to time and made some friends in London.

On one occassion her English friends were putting on a dinner party for people they knew and included in the guest list a young up-and-coming Frenchman. He knew little English but that problem was solved by sitting him alongside the Australian girl, as she was the only other person who spoke French.

The two have been married for around 50 years now and live in grand style in central Paris with a country house in Normandy and a beach house in Brittany. So studying foreign languages CAN pay off sometimes