I'm Almost Fluent in French. Here’s How!

Almost is a stretch, a very big stretch. However, I’m speaking things into existence here, bear with me.

As a rare rain hit my window pane in L.A. this morning, I opened my eyes and opened my language learning app.

Letting a listening exercise play, I lay with all my limbs under the cover, repeating when prompted with spaces of silence.

After receiving my “gems”, a reward for completion of tasks in the app, it reminded me that I’d now hit a 205-day streak! That means I’ve been sure to get on this language learning app every single day, whether for 2 minutes or twenty, for over the last two-hundred days!

I reached a 200-day streak on Duolingo after not being consistent for years. Let me tell you how (you can too)!

On my profile page, it says “joined July 2016”, but prior to starting this streak I’m on, just last year in 2021, I hadn’t been able to maintain consistency AT ALL.

I would try everything from setting alarms on my phone to writing it my planner, to promising myself rewards, and I don’t think I ever even made it to a 30-day streak. Even getting into the teens and twenties of a streak was rare for me.

The Real Story Is: How A Boy Kickstarted My Consistency

Yeah. As much as I hate to say it, this over-200-day streak started with a boy. He and I had gone to the same school, and had the same French teacher, Madame Jane Becnel of Vacherie, Louisiana.

This boy and I had conversed on and off since I was 12 years old. He went off to college and we kept in contact. Then I went off to college in another direction and we still kept in contact.

I moved to Los Angeles after graduating college, and he moved off to wherever, getting his master’s degree. Now on completely opposite sides of the country, for some reason, unbeknownst to me, me and this darn boy kept finding our way back to one another.

We’d link back home in Louisiana when we were both coincidentally there at the same time, going by his newly separated mom’s or dad’s house.

He’d made a point to see me in Los Angeles, if he had to travel to this side of the map for a work or school conference.

And no matter how short or long the span of time between us reuniting, each time, we’d have the deepest conversations, that were often thought-provoking, future-oriented, and/or inspiring.

Fast forward to the top of 2021, we got closer than ever.

The core of our connection was our shared Louisiana Creole heritage, what that meant to us and our appreciation for it, while also having quite different interests than the average person where we’re from. And he and I really met on an intellectual level, enjoying one another’s minds.

How is this blabber, about a boy, related to you getting fluent in French, girl?!

I’ll tell you.

He and I had separately been refreshing our French from school on the same language learning app, but either didn’t know it or didn’t pay any attention to it.

One day last year, the topic arose and some kind of way we decided to add each other as friends on the app and make a friendly wager about who would stay consistent longer.

On the language learning app, Duolingo, it counts every day you practice on their site towards your “streak.” When you don’t practice on the app, your streak resets, putting you back at zero.

We said that the person that kept their streak going the longest would be considered the winner, and the person whose streak gets reset to zero first would have to do something for the winner.

Off the top of my head, I told this boy I wanted a week’s worth of foot massages if I maintain practicing French daily longer than him.

Do you know this got darn boy then refused to rub my feet while our little competition was going on? We were hanging in his penthouse pad one evening, my legs were sprawled across his, and I made a cute puppy dog face, poking out my lip about my feet hurting from work. His little raggedy behind really fixed his lips and told me, “I’m not going to rub your feet because I know that’s what you want.. that’s your prize.”

As intelligent a man he is, that darn boy would say some stupid a** s*** sometimes. You’re not going to rub my feet because you know I want you to rub my feet?? WHAT?!

I digress.

Being such a thinker (and somewhat indecisive, and emotional, like a woman), he never came up with what he’d want his prize to be if he stayed consistent practicing French longer than me.

“Hmmm.. give me a moment to think about it. What would a good prize from T.K. look like?”

Eventually, I told him not to worry about it because he wasn’t going to win anyway.

I told a boy, that I was talking to, I’d do something.. And I meant it.

My eyes were on me. His eyes were on me. It was all out on the table. I don’t know if it was about proving a point to him, or proving a point to myself up against this very disciplined man (disciplined enough to get a doctorate degree). Or, maybe, working all those high end events, #aroundLA, on my feet, really had me wanting those foot massages.

For years, I struggled to reach even 20 days; then a boy gets involved and I sail right into 200 days of consistency.

That's wild. That’s weird. And I don’t want to give him credit.

He ended up dropping out in the 30-day range or so, and I never got my foot massages. [inserts side eye] But by that point, I realized, “oh shoot.. I can be consistent? May as well keep going!”

I’m not certain exactly what it was, but having an accountability partner worked, even for as little as it lasted, it got me going.

Get an accountability partner to help you start being consistent.

You don’t need a boy that’s been stressing you out your entire adolescence and adulthood. You can get an old buddy from school, or a co-worker, or a random person you met online. All you need is a person that’s as serious as, or more serious than, you!

Having an accountability partner will help you maintain consistency in the direction of your goals.

If you’d like to add me as a friend on Duolingo, here’s the link to my profile: tekeyakrystal. You’ll be able to see my practice activity. Seeing other people work on the app is a motivating way to remind you to take 3 minutes and complete an exercise!

How do you maintain consistency?

Share with me on Twitter, or tag @aroundLAwithTK on your InstaStory about something you’re practicing consistency in now.

Blog cover photo: Post on my personal Instagram account from spring 2020, when all the COVID-19 shutdown madness began, I said I was going to work towards French fluency; I fell off shortly thereafter, but 2 years later, I’m back and I’m better.