Before going, I was TERRIFIED of speaking french with Native speakers. What if I sound SUPER American? Am I actually saying this right? Will they talk so fast I don't understand and look stupid? These were all common thought blowing around in my head on the flight over, along with, this plane better not crash. I had years in class time of learning, speaking, and reading french, but in class french is vastly different from IRL french. In class you know the topics, therefore you have the vocabulary and information at the front of your head. IRL, you never know what's going to pop up so you have to be ready to call forward as much as you know as fast as you can. Also, accents can be so hard to get used to and understand. Most of my teachers were American and therefore had an american french accent. The first teacher I had that was a Native speaker, it took me a while to get used to it and understand each word coming out of her mouth. Now do that in a city full of international people who all spoke french? Man, it was wild. I had to learn hard and fast to communicate with people. My third day there, I asked the gaurd to our apartment building something about the Carrefour (French Walmart) and turns out, neither of us were ready for each other's way of speaking. By the end of the exchange I was laughing at how long it took despite having a shared language. It was then I knew I needed to work on my auditory comprehension more than anything.
Every weekend we were there, should we have nothing planned with the program, friends and I would go out on the town exploring and meeting Lill-ians. One night in a bar I got the chance to practice my auditory comprehension. I met Thomas, an Irish-Frenchman with a strong accent in both English and French. He would end up being the ultimate test for me the entire time I was there. By the time I left, I could understand his french better, but definately not perfect. I would have to give myself a 7/10 in my improvements though!