The tone might have been ironic, but people really do not learn French (or any other foreign language, for that matter).

In fact, I did not learn English in High School. I learned English on my own by reading Scientific American with a dictionary. It would take me 5 hours to read an article. But I wanted to be a scientist and I knew that I needed to be able to read scientific papers, and Scientific American was all I could get my hands on.

All I can remember from my High School English was "get got gotten". That and a loony might buy you a cheap coffee.

If there is one thing I know is that our schools do not know how to teach languages.