I think I’ve made a lot of progress with it in less than a year and for only studying 15 minutes a day or so, but the funny thing is that my brain sort of treats French and Japanese as the same language, so if I come across a word that I don’t know or get into an area where I haven’t kea Ned how to say something yet, my brain fills in the spaces with Japanese words and tries to force the reversed Japanese syntax on the French.
Je veux manger de la via de pour diner.
Becomes something like …
Pour diner, de la viande veux manger.
I think it’s just a lack of drilling. At this point, when I’m making sentences, I have to think of every detail and string them together, in that moment, my Japanese brain reflexively takes over.