When I first arrived in France, I could write small essays but it was hard for me to verbally form proper sentences that were grammatically correct. As a person who prides them self on proper diction, being in a situation where I was the person who had the broken French became a real eye opener. During the French-as-a-second-language courses, the teacher started with very simple children books. I didn't like having to start at the bottom and was very resistant to reading these types of material. In my mind I felt like I could handle classical French literature, however, in reality I could barely handle reading the books at an elementary school level. It was that attitude that really hindered my first few months of progress improving my French. Having always done so well in other courses, I felt that it should have translated to my experience learning French.
Unfortunately, this was not the case and it took me a going through one stage of culture shock, a few months of total French exposure and interacting with locals to finally force me to drop my attitude and simply embrace the experience. In the chance that I decide to learn another language in the future, a few lessons that I will have kept from my French experience is to be humble, not to take criticism personal and find an activity that I enjoy in the language I am learning. Most importantly, I will remember to have fun because it's only a language after all.
