Mrs. Schwartz was quite frustrated with one student, ME, who rarely did the homework necessary for high-school French, yet had some knack for being able to see, almost unerringly, where grammatical mistakes lay in OTHER students' homework!
So I just barely passed her class and my next, in 1960's high school, but the French I did learn served me well later when, in Saudi Arabia, I interpreted Korean-French and French-Korean for some salesmen demonstrating their medical equipment goods for a hospital we were building!
It is projects like this, intercultural and poly-lingual, that appeal to some people, people like you, perhaps? Or the thought that your NEXT trip to Europe will be with at least French on your tongue, so that you can more fully explore the French countryside outside the big cities, and more positively meet the courteous French who live there, converse more freely with them and have an altogether more enjoyable time than you experienced on other trips where you were confined pretty much to Paris, with only phrase-book French to crutch along on?
What is your desired outcome? WHY do you want to learn this proud, beautiful language? Do you have friends you want to speak with on THEIR terms? Have a job waiting next year IF you can pick up a few hundred words with minimal fluency? Or have you longed for years to dive into the mysteries of French literature, in French, now that you've read dozens of translations?
Whatever your overall motivation, you have learning options available today that Mrs Schwartz did NOT, and nor did we as students. Hey, we were lucky to get 'Language Lab' a few times a month, or check out a 16 RPM Extended Long-Play record from the library!
But today YOU have courses available with audio, video, interactive Q&A, vocabulary quizzes and all the contextual clues you can ask for in a package to learn French! Where we high-school students would have begged, borrowed or stolen to get learning tools like this, you can access them with no more than a few dollars to get the DVD and the books! Progress, ain't it wunnerful?
So find someone in your area to help you with the spoken, aural-oral part of your studies, and jump into an online program (no recommendations in this article, check back later) or a computer-DVD program and start your Odyssey from naif to vieux parleur... Check to see if there are any French-language shows available on cable in your area. Look for French-tracked DVDs at your BlockBuster outlet. Get some tape cassettes from your library if you're pressed for cash and still have a cassette player!
The main thing is, chart your path and take your first steps! You CAN learn French in a timely, efficient manner, so jump in and Bon Voyage!