Sleep-deprived two Speakeasies in a row. I guess my beginner’s luck had run out because this time the words did not magically flow from my uncooperative brain.
As I was expending copious amounts of energy trying to say anything like something an actual French person would say, I was simultaneously having an out of body experience in which I was hovering above myself taking great pride in every single word that came out of my mouth, because here I was speaking another language, which is just nuts considering I don’t speak another language.
At the same time, I realized with a jolt that the person across from me was opening his mouth and effortlessly releasing words that flowed intuitively one from the other. There was absolutely no struggle on his part because he had been speaking this language from infancy the same way that I had been speaking English. For him, French is neither fun, nor frustrating, nor anything other than utilitarian.
It struck me as utterly bizarre that his native language was my foreign language and vice versa – that what I experience in a French conversation is 100% different than what he does. It’s not as though I have never thought about this before, but at that moment it felt like when you repeat your own name over and over until it sounds completely unfamiliar.
I should really get more sleep before I go back to one of these things…
[Photo: Valeri Passon]
talk foreign to me 
Up and down days are part of the language-learning process. Sometimes we hit a wall when we’re moving to the next level. You can see kids occasionally regressing in their verbal skills as they develop. The main thing is that the kids keep talking! Keep up what you’re doing and I’m sure you’ll keep on moving up.