, I think I might be starting to understand. Thank you for the repetition.

Bonjour Jimmy, Assuming that you are a native English speaker, we often forget in learning a second or even third language how we learned English. It was not that we picked it up in a year or two, it was by rote, that is that, for most of us in the US who had a minimum of 12 years in school, we were immersed in English daily and we went over the same things for the most part repetitively. And after those 12 years, we came out of school with varying levels in vocabulary: "Nagy and Anderson (1984) estimated that an average high school senior knows 45,000 words, but other researchers have estimated that the number is much closer to 17,000 words (D'Anna, Zechmeister, & Hall, 1991) or 5,000 words (Hirsh & Nation, 1992)." As you can see, the studies vary from 5000 words to 45,000 words. The point being, that no matter the size of our vocabulary upon graduation, it was learned by repetition and usage. The same holds for learning French, it is by repetition and usage that we will become proficient. The largest problem that we have living in the US, is we are not exposed on a day over day basis to the language and culture of French, i.e. we are not immersed in it, like we would be having grown up in France or another French speaking country nor by being in that milieu daily. Bonne chance et bonne continuation dans vos études en français.