I passed the DELF B1, a French language proficiency exam! I was happy to finally pass an exam I had wanted to take for a long time. But the experience left me with more than just a sense of accomplishment.
I first started learning French about ten years ago. I loved the way it sounded, enjoyed watching French films, and stayed interested in it longer than I did in other foreign languages. That was really all there was to it! But that doesn’t mean I kept up with French for ten years straight. I would study it for a while, stop, and then pick it up again.
Over the years, I kept drifting away from French and coming back to it. I was also learning English at the same time, so I often put off studying French to focus on my English.
Still, I never completely gave up on French. Many small moments kept drawing me back to it: conversations I had in French while traveling, French phrases I came across in everyday life, and my dream of broadening my world and working abroad. French kept opening me up to new cultures and possibilities.
Earning the certificate meant a lot to me, and I was truly happy about it. But I also found myself looking beyond the result.
Even if I stopped many times along the way, the time I spent starting again didn’t simply disappear. The DELF B1 was not something I achieved perfectly in one uninterrupted attempt. Instead, it showed me that all the times I stopped and started again could still add up to one continuous path when I looked back on them.
Perhaps holding on to something for a long time doesn’t mean keeping it up every single day. It may simply mean being able to come back to it, even after you have stopped.
In the past, I might have told myself, “The exam is over, so it’s time to take a break”. and slowly drifted away from French again. This time, however, I have kept up with it by reading books in French and continuing to study. Even if French slips into the background again someday, I know I will find my way back to it.
Rather than focusing only on the next certificate or the next level, I want to keep exploring the wider world that French has opened up to me.
P.S. I plan to write a separate post about the resources I used to prepare for the DELF B1, how I studied, and what I experienced on the day of the exam. For some people, the practical details of how I prepared may be more helpful than the story of why I kept coming back to French!