Je n'ai pas encore parler français

I just read an article on Matador network about how to learn a language in three months. I admit when I read the headline I was skeptical. (5 steps to learn a language in 3 months)


"Fluency takes time.... three months.... but i've been learning French (outside of school) for two years and I'm still struggling..."


I finally realised what I've been doing wrong but before I get into that, here's a link to the article. Maybe if any of you are like me, still struggling with something that should be cake by now but continues to escape, this link will be helpful. 


In my case I realized this morning that I kept telling myself that I want to learn French by the end of the year without really setting any goals as to how or what I want to be able to do with the language.  I also realize that I was biting off way more than I can chew by just accepting a broad challenge without taking the process one step at a time. Instead of wasting 10 months trying to learn everything in French I could get my hands on from sports to food to current events, I should have just maybe taken three months at a time and set a foreseeable goal.  A perfect example would have been... in 90 days I'm going to learn all the words to "Ne Me Quitte Pas" or in 90 days I'm going to learn how to tell someone the plot of "Amelie" in French.


Right away,  after simply saying that, everything sounds more attainable and not so scary as imagining I have to know every word in French just incase it comes up in conversation.  It's helpful to know random words but at the same time more helpful to understand how to construct sentences and decline verbs and mostly to practice speaking!  Ok, I feel a lot better now honestly because the truth is, while I have been learning a lot of French over the past 10 months, I feel like most of it has been specific to certain situations that I may never even find myself in.  It's frustrating to still have the word "crémaillère" still stuck in my head when the truth is that I don't go to that many house warming parties and may really only have one in my life.  And even if I go to 75 housewarming parties in the next year, how many of those people are going to be french speaking that I would even be able to use the word? 


I guess 10 months into my challenge to learn French it might be a little late to start over... I could just continue what I'm doing and start again in January like I did this year and have a new goal in place.  But I think the best thing I can do is to figure out something quick and start towards it right away. At least it would give me something to brag about on my christmas cards!  What should my new 90 day goal be? Even if it doesn't work I'm always willing to trying a new method of learning!  


The last thing I'm going to do is post this video. I know that some of you, like me, have seen this video numerous times.  As far as I'm concerned Capucine never gets old.  Now that I'm going to develop a new goal as step 4,567,993 to learning this language I thought of her and her storytelling.  This girl was four at the time the video was shot and she tells a great story. Ok, yes, she's a native French speaker but that doesn't mean I can't be motivated by her, right?