I mean everything: the speech around me, my daughters speaking to one another, my husband speaking to our daughters, the television, the radio, the internet (I am aware I can do setting changes, but things still pop up in French), food labels, directions, billboard advertising, newspapers, flyers, books, and I am sure I am leaving things out that make a difference in my life.
Yes, sure, I know. These are all good things when it comes to learning a new or second language by way of immersion. Yet, sometimes, these things are simply all a huge pain in the derrière (bottom, rear end, butt). You never really think about it when you are in your home country on native soil or even when you are merely a "less than 30 day" tourist/traveler somewhere. Language just does not matter when you are surrounded by those who speak the same. However, when you are surrounded by a different language regardless of whether or not you speak and understand does not matter. Some days I just want to be surrounded by English.
I want to be able to carry on a conversation without thinking while listening, "did I say what I meant? did I conjugate that verb correctly? or crap, I should have said..." Granted perhaps this sort on inside your head conversation goes away as you gain fluency. For me it has not happened yet. I still think about a French conversation days later. I am sure at some point I will be able to just listen and not translate as well as speak without lots of thought about my sentence structure. I will simply speak French as I speak English. I look forward to those days...
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