TedEH
Cromulent
I mean, I've got some french books - I'm re-reading the old Dragon Ball books in french (lol), all my youtube ads are french, the lyrics in our bands are french, our jams are bilingual, the office is bilingual, most of daily life here is French once you leave your own home - immersion is not a problem. And we do occasionally talk about language, and or use French in all these places. But it's not all the time, and it's not forced.
When you try to order something, get the eye roll and switch back to English, I cannot for the life of me force them to switch back. The accent is a giveaway, and nobody wants to struggle to communicate while doing a job. And in any other situation where I'm there for a purpose, there's no time for us to grind to a halt to give me language lessons when we're trying to accomplish something.
And it's not like the way I've been going hasn't been making progress - I passed the previous level, and have been told I'm in good shape going into the 3rd level. And it's also not like I'm refusing strait out to try to use it, but there's a limit.
When I say militant, I mean being told "I need you to commit, right now, that you will not speak to your band mates in English anymore". No, I can't do that. That's not reasonable.
If you asked the Quebecois around here, they'd be very quick to tell you that this is a distinct nation with only one official language: French. There is an abundance of opportunity - enough so that there isn't a need to invent ones where it would throw a wrench into things or make me out to be a jerk.
Practice? Yes. Find opportunities? Yes. Insist that everyone around be your practice buddy even if they don't want to? No. Dedicate yourself to this one thing that you're mostly doing out of a courtesy and because the law just short of mandates it in response to a complicated history of the French and English hating eachother hundreds of years ago? That's very hard to commit to.
I would think that if you want someone to stick with something, you have to let them have some control of the pace. I don't need to learn fast. I don't need to assimilate right now. I know very well that if I force it in too many situations, I'm going to get frustrated and bail, which I'd rather not do.
