Your main bottleneck is the real-time spoken English: starting, following, reacting, and formulating answers quickly.
1. Move from "learning English" to "using English"¶
You probably already know enough English to express most of what you want. The problem is retrieval speed.
Instead of learning:
fed up = annoyed
learn and repeatedly use:
"I'm fed up with dealing with this."
Then change it:
I'm fed up with waiting.
I'm fed up with this weather.
I'm fed up with having to explain it.
You want expressions to become automatic.
2. Shadowing would probably help you a lot¶
This is one of the things I'd prioritize.
Take a 30–60 second clip of natural English conversation.
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Listen once without subtitles.
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Listen again with English subtitles.
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Play one sentence.
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Pause.
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Repeat it imitating the speaker's rhythm and pronunciation.
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Repeat until you can say it naturally.
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Move to the next sentence.
Don't try to sound "perfect". Try to reproduce:
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rhythm
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contractions
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pauses
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intonation
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linking between words
For example:
"What are you gonna do?"
Don't practice it as:
WHAT / ARE / YOU / GOING / TO / DO?
Practice it as a single spoken unit:
"Whaddaya gonna do?"
You don't necessarily need to speak exactly that way, but you need to become comfortable hearing reduced speech.
3. Train your ears for real English¶
This is probably particularly important if you understand English well when reading but struggle with people speaking naturally.
Native speakers don't pronounce every word distinctly.
For example:
"Did you get it?"
may sound approximately like:
"D'ya get it?"
And:
"What do you want to do?"
can sound much closer to:
"Whaddaya wanna do?"
So when you struggle to understand someone, it isn't necessarily a vocabulary problem.
You need exposure to connected speech.
4. Learn conversation "moves"¶
This is probably the biggest thing I'd add to your current 200-item list.
A conversation isn't just:
Question → answer → question → answer.
You need little conversational moves.
When you don't understand¶
"Sorry, what was that?"
"Sorry, I didn't catch that."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Could you say that again?"
When you need time¶
"Let me think."
"How can I put it?"
"That's a good question."
"I've never really thought about that."
When you want them to continue¶
"Really? Tell me more."
"What happened next?"
"And then what?"
"How did that happen?"
When you want to change subject¶
"By the way..."
"Speaking of..."
"That reminds me..."
These are incredibly useful because they reduce the cognitive load of spontaneous conversation.
5. Start thinking in English — but don't force it¶
Don't try to spend an entire day thinking in English.
Instead, use small moments.
When you're driving:
I'm going to pick up my daughter.
I'm running late.
I need to stop for fuel.
I wonder if there's going to be traffic.
When cooking:
I need to chop the onions.
The pan is getting too hot.
I think I've put too much salt in.
The objective isn't studying.
It's training your brain to go:
concept → English
instead of:
concept → French → English
6. Do a 5-minute "talk to yourself" exercise¶
This is surprisingly effective.
Every day, pick one subject:
What did I do today?
Speak for 2–5 minutes without stopping.
Don't worry about mistakes.
For example:
"So, today was pretty busy. I got up around seven, then I had a coffee and started working. I had a meeting at nine which actually went pretty well..."
If you don't know a word, don't stop.
Explain it another way.
If you don't know "perceuse":
"That thing you use to make holes in the wall..."
That's an extremely important conversational skill: circumlocution.
Native speakers do this too.
7. Record yourself once a week¶
Take the same type of topic each week:
"What did I do this weekend?"
Record 2–3 minutes.
Then listen to yourself.
Look for only three things:
A. Hesitation¶
"I... uh... I... basically..."
B. Repeated words¶
"Basically... basically... basically..."
C. French structures¶
For example, translating French syntax directly into English.
Don't try to correct everything.
Pick one recurring problem and work on it for the following week.
8. Have actual conversations¶
This is the part you can't replace with Anki.
If you have access to English-speaking colleagues, friends, language exchanges, etc., deliberately create situations where you have to speak.
And here's an important rule:
Don't wait until you have something interesting to say.¶
Ask questions.
For example:
"How was your weekend?"
"What did you get up to?"
"How did that go?"
"How did you get into that?"
"What was it like?"
"Would you do it again?"
Those questions can keep a conversation going almost indefinitely.
9. Stop translating everything¶
You don't need to eliminate French completely. Instead, identify high-frequency thoughts and learn their English versions.
For example:
French:
J'arrive.
Don't construct it each time.
Immediately:
I'm coming.
French:
J'en ai marre.
Immediately:
I'm fed up.
French:
Ça dépend.
Immediately:
It depends.
French:
Ça m'est sorti de la tête.
Immediately:
It slipped my mind.
This is where your new expression list becomes useful.
10. Don't obsess over sounding "native"¶
I'd aim for:
natural + clear + spontaneous
rather than:
British/American native speaker
You can have a French accent and still sound very fluent.
In fact, improving rhythm, sentence stress and connected speech will probably make a larger difference to how natural you sound than eliminating every trace of your accent.
A routine I'd recommend for you¶
Given your specific objective, I'd keep it fairly simple:
30–40 minutes/day¶
10 min — expressions
Review your 100 conversational chunks + 100 phrasal verbs.
10 min — listening
A short piece of authentic spoken English.
10 min — shadowing
Repeat the actual speaker.
5–10 min — speaking
Talk about your day, a recent event, an opinion, etc.
And then:
Once or twice a week¶
Have a 30+ minute real conversation in English.
And one thing I'd change about your learning philosophy¶
Don't ask yourself:
"Do I know this word?"
Ask:
"Could I use this naturally in a conversation tomorrow?"
That's a much better test of your level.
And based on the English you've written to me in this conversation, I wouldn't describe your main problem as lack of English knowledge. It's much more likely that you need to turn passive knowledge into active, automatic conversational English.
That is a very trainable problem.