> The next "advanced" difficulty is that of idioms and idiomatic usage, english is full of idiomatic phrases. Something like "to get it over with", "to make ends meet". Learning such idiomatic phrases is difficult but necessary to reach an intermediate level of english.
> At the same level, learning French, one can perfect one's pronunciation (to the one, official pronunciation), catch up on a few corner cases of the conjugation system and enjoy having mastered a language.
Are you seriously suggesting that French does not have idioms?
I'm puzzled by this, as a French speaker. But strangely, I have heard it being said quite often by people from a variety of native languages.
( never by people that have had to live in a French speaking country )
It could be the structure of the courses. When learning English, you almost go straight to learning those idioms Especially the idiom-like infinite collections of verb + preposition. In French, on the other hand, you will spend an enormous amount of time learning grammar, the exceptions and the exceptions exceptions, and of course stuff like noun genders. It can make you think that learning French is all about technique, while learning English is all about knowing an infinitely large vocabulary while the truth is just that French grammar is awful and writing without spelling mistake is a challenge even for well educated French natives.
> At the same level, learning French, one can perfect one's pronunciation (to the one, official pronunciation), catch up on a few corner cases of the conjugation system and enjoy having mastered a language.
Are you seriously suggesting that French does not have idioms?