In A State Of Language Fluency?

I'm going to start off this post by saying that one does not need to speak the language of a country to live there.

I'm saying this so that you don't start off reading this post with the assumption that I must speak French well because I've been able to be here for almost 6 weeks.

Supporting Example: I met a woman who had lived in Toulouse for 20 years and never learned French. (Yes, she was American...)

***This is all about my French speaking, so it might not be particularly interesting. If you want to know about how my French is going, here you go.***

Educational Background:

(In case you were curious)

Okay, so I've only taken French for about 3 or 4 years in school. I started in middle school, where I learned only bare basics. Then I took French freshman year with a class combined of multiple levels of French (this was bad, because there were three entirely different classes in one trailer with one teacher). Then I had French my sophomore and junior years of high school, junior year French being fairly intense.

So that's how I studied French. Was I fluent? Ehh. Listening was almost impossible for me and my accent was horrid.

Before coming, I would Google things like "how long does it take to become fluent in a foreign language" and the answer was always that it takes quite a while. But, I've studied it so I should be good right? Right, actually.

How good am I now, here:

Lots of people say my French is really good. They tell it to my face and every time I respond that I'm not so sure. These are usually adults, who realize that it's actually important to give me motivation.

Some people tell me that my French is better than their English. That does make me feel better.

Some people just get extremely excited when there's an American trying to speak French for once (as opposed to the French who are consistently amazing at English).

On the other hand, I have heard people say my French is not good. 

This is so frustrating and rude, to be honest, mostly because I genuinely don't think it's true. Also, I'm sure they don't think I can understand them when they say that my French is not good. What irony. 

See list below-

When is my French bad:

No, my French is not good when we're in a group of teenagers speaking slang.

No, my French is not good when there is loud music playing. 

No, my French is not good when I've just woken up.

No, my French is not good when I'm particularly stressed out.

When is my French good:

But if I'm having a one on one conversation, I understand it. Point blank. Sometimes I ask the person I'm talking to what a word or two means because I want to learn, but if I need to I can generally actively converse without additional clarification.

Also, I can comprehend a lot of reading. This is because of school. For instance, if I put French subtitles on a French movie, I understand exactly what's happening because I can read instead of listen. (Reading is easier than listening for me because that's what I've practiced more.)

I almost always know the vocab words for whatever I want to say (but to be fair I only ever want to talk about so many things). However, it often happens that I can see the spelling in my head but can't say it the right way because of my accent. 

I can pull the words for umbrella and watermelon and a lot of other random stuff out of my head.

This makes me particularly proud.

So, it's really hard to be secure in a language when you're constantly in situations that make your French look bad. Here are some other reasons that I seem less proficient that I actually can be-

Things that I do that make people think my French is bad:

I'm going to look confused a lot because of the things that people say to me (not because I can't understand them).

Examples: Hey have you ever drinken so much that you passed out

Or

So tell me more about the bee crisis in Indiana

Or

Hey isn't Virginia close to Arizona

These kinds of questions warrant a jaw drop and a slight eye roll in any language.

I'm going to be quiet because I have nothing to contribute to the converstaion a lot, not because I don't understand what you're saying.

Laughing. If I laugh at you joke I am in fact laughing because I understand your joke, thank you. It might have been a dumb joke- but in every language I laugh at those. Oops.

All in all, I speak English well. So, hey, that's not so bad. Plus, I speak French well enough to conceivably be a functional human in France without help.

One cannot quantify one's own abilities... I guess.

No one ever said living abroad wouldn't be frustrating.