PARIS–I’ve now spent more time in a French-speaking environment than at any point since the June day in 1991 when I boarded a flight to Newark from here at the end of my family’s two-year expatriate stay.

Twenty-five years is a long time to go out of practice in a language, and I lived up to my low expectations of my degraded proficiency when I said “210” as “205” Monday evening. But each day since then, I’ve gotten a little more comfortable at not just hearing or reading French but the more difficult part of speaking it.

I’m not about to have verb-conjugation tables pop back into my head all filled out, but as I find myself engaging in brief exchanges without getting flustered, I’ve realized that the francophone parts of my brain haven’t turned to mush. Instead, I can almost picture the old synapses lighting up for the first time in a quarter of a century.

Vous pouvez imaginer mon soulagement!

(Yes, I did wimp out by checking that in Google Translate.)

I am going to need more practice to get close to my former fluency. I could add French to the Spanish lessons I’ve been taking in the Duolingo app (thanks for the recommendation of that in a comment on an earlier post here), but what I really could use is another good tech event or two to attend here. Suggestions?