You'd say that after nine years of France, I would be fluent in French with my English in tow, and probably have an accent when speaking Tagalog. The bitter truth is that my French have stagnated at a little below the intermediate level. Then my English is deteriorating, and my Tagalog, my mother tongue, needs a little more effort of remembering words. In the end, with juggling three languages, my level of fluency has been questionable.My written French still needs the dico & the Bescherelle (dictionary for verb conjugating), I speak using more familiar words like boulot instead of travail (work), using quoi at the end of sentences & still not always sure with the gender of things. So sometimes I can grope for words in the middle of conversations. My English is suffering with ocassional invented words. Just recently with the word submission, I just naturally spelled it submition. My business English needs ransacking. And no, I don't have an accent when speaking Tagalog. It's still intact although sometimes words take a little longer to come. I guess, the vocabulary is the most affected. One time, I had to ask my husband what the English word for trier (to sort) is.
I speak English with my husband, speak French with the rest & speak Tagalog with Filipino friends. I actively use three languages everytime. It feels more natural now than 5 years ago but when you start spelling submission as submition, like a whole new jargon, you really start to wonder if your brain is really getting old for such tasks. And it's not that I don't have practice. I guess it's really just a question of putting more effort.
And I wanted to learn Spanish.
*I had to also learn Italian during my training in hotellerie & the language never lingered after
