French 101: It was the quarter-life crisis that made me want to learn a language

It's been on the bucket list for a long time – learning another language.
Like far too many of my compatriots, I'm ashamed to say my first and last language are the same thing – English. But, after enduring years of that oh-so-common guilt which comes when conversing with someone of another tongue in my own – a daily occurrence in Dubai – I decided to do something about it.
My motivation is strong – recently turning 30, my quarter-life crisis has manifested itself in a heartfelt desire to be a better person in my fourth decade in the world. Or certainly a more lingual one.
So I enrolled in beginner's French at Alliance Française. Oh yes I did – and that's what this ongoing blog is all about.
Why French, you ask? Tonal familiarity, geographical proximity, and movies – in that order. I simply love French cinema, and France is just right next door (to the UK), so it makes some kind of sense. And let's not forget all those years of halfhearted school study – surely the basics are still buried somewhere up there, just waiting for me to enrol in a refresher and unlock the chest?
If my first lesson taught me anything, it's that said key was lost long ago – and nothing remains of the lock but a rusty mess.
Proudly I mined my schoolboy knowledge in front of my five classmates, in an attempt to recite the days of the week.
I stumbled at jeudi (Thursday). If there was any doubt, class 101 is definitely the one for me.
At the close of the session my teacher wrote a list of six levels on the whiteboard. Ah, I thought, at seven weeks a module, I'll be native in no time. But no, she then preceded to divide each of these six blocks into four further blocks.
I panicked, struggling to count on my fingers – 24 modules of seven weeks, why, that's... 168 weeks, 3.23 years... four with holidays. You're not serious?
But no – I'm in this for the long haul. I made a resolution, and I will stick to it. It's in public and everything, so there's no way I can back down now.
Maybe wish me luck all the same.
Rob Garratt is studying beginners's French at Alliance Française Dubai, a non-profit language and cultural institution established in 1982, which teaches French to more than 2,500 students every year. Find out more at www.afdubai.org.