Very interesting.
I think the estimate for learning French is way off, though.
a conservative estimate, based on the idea of him taking lessons everyday (he clearly really wants to impress Rita), it would have taken somewhere around 12 years to become completely fluent (though ex-pats living in Francophone countries sometimes state it takes longer even than that)
Well, “completely fluent”? He’s fluent enough to appreciate 19th-century poetry, and to recite it without butchering the language. And 19th-century poetry is definitely something he focused on, as opposed to, say, everyday conversational fluency.
I’m of course assuming there is one competent French teacher in town, but failing that, we know there is someone who studied 19th-century French poetry in college.
French is one of the easier languages for native English speakers. The US The Foreign Service Institute classifies it as “category 1”, requiring 600 hours of study, spread across 24 (that’s 25 hours per week, or 5 hours Mo-Fr), to reach “General Professional Proficiency”. That’s not native-level fluency, but if you gear things towards poetry, it’s definitely enough.
If the teacher is bad, or he’s particularly untalented, multiply that by five. That’s still less than two and a half years of dedicated studying.
But then again, I hear public opinion in America has it that learning a language is a next-to-impossible feat… so might it really take him 10 years to overcome that mental block?
