Will I be able to read fluently in French?

[Digby Green]

Hello

I am an older English speaking guy.

I am trying to learn to read French history books, and translate some of the pages.

At the moment it takes me an hour or so to roughly translate a small paragraph.

Do you think it is possible to get to the stage where I could read a French book at the same speed as an English book?

[George Hunt]

It is hard to say. I  read English faster than French but  I imagine that some people can be equally fast in either language.. Perhaps it may be a skill to  learn to translate strategic passages well and  skip  or skim through the less important ones  until such time as  you reach that stage.

As we all know,practice makes perfect.