Tug of war. Players A to M against N to Z

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Didn't notice until you mentioned it. I'm pretty much self taught with French, primarily written. I read 20000 leagues under the sea in the original French and lots of other old French novels. Problem was, which I didn't really think about at the time, was the French people find my spoken French somewhat quaint, as I use vocabulary that is now considered dead. Kinda like speaking Dickensian English.
I wrote software to translate French words to English in text based novels e.g. Guttenberg. It worked very well for learning written French. I had lots of French people to talk to for speaking. Always struggled with writing it though as I didn't do a great deal of it.

I'm the opposite - I was always very accomplished on paper, but remember struggling to buy a ticket on the Paris Metro in 1981. I still loathe the unpleasant and aggressive guy in the ticket office to this day!

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By and large I found most French people fine to get on with. I always spoke French to them which was appreciated. Some younger people spoke English back to me, as we each practised our non-native language. Our French neighbour (who couldn't speak a word of English) often visited and I acted as translator between him and my wife. My wife picked up a certain amount of French but always left it to me to talk. I always struggled with gender though, mixing up le and la etc. It didn't seem to bother the French people though, they grasped what I was saying anyway, despite such blunders. If I say la porte instead of le porte, they can figure out if I'm talking about a door or a sea port.

I suspect I'd have all sorts of problems with the 'vous' and 'tu' issues. I really struggle with things like informality, and am grateful that English, unlike many other European languages, doesn't have this distinction.

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I never used the Tu form during our ten years in France, even with our neighbours who we were on very friendly terms with. If in doubt just stick to formality. One thing that did help, as soon as we moved there we bought a French TV and listened exclusively to programmes in French. At first the language was often spoken too quickly for full understanding, but over time it got much easier. Some programmes were much better than others. Documentaries tended to be spoken more slowly with clear enunciation, but the news could sometimes be gabbled through very quickly as were discussion programmes. Surprisingly lots of English people in France just bought a satellite dish and listened exclusively to UK television. I thought it important to learn French. It should be the duty of people moving to foreign countries to learn the language.

Boujour, ous est la piscine. (O level grade D French)

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WooHoo, could it be....?