Language frustrations

The first week of orientation, I did well enough on my placement exam to be excused from taking a requisite French grammar or phonetics class. Instead, I signed up to meet one-on-one with a French tutor twice this semester. I had my first meeting this morning. She had this to say:

I’m still thinking in English.

It’s an unbelievably frustrating thing to admit. I’ve changed the language on Facebook to French. I’m reading French books. I’m trying – though I know I can do much better – to speak in French with my friends in the Educo program. And yet I keep using Anglicisms, I find myself messing up French prepositions because I think of the English (and usually more general) equivalents, I’m getting flustered when I speak and reverting to basic grammatical mistakes I learned to avoid years ago.

I know the quasi-French language immersion is working in some regards: when I speak English, I’ll find French words popping into my head. I need to stop and think for a second about the English equivalent. But it’s not enough.

I guess a part of me thought that studying in Paris would be the magic ‘on’ switch for French fluency. It’s just so frustrating. It feels like the more I’m exposed to the language, the less I know.