Yeah. I had four years of high school French and was in maybe the top 25% of the class (barely). But I've never spent any appreciable time in France and, even when I was at my best, was maybe "OK" for written French and thoroughly mediocre for spoken French. So the idea that it just takes a bit of dedicated effort to get very good is not true broadly.

I realized on my last trip to Paris with a friend that I know a lot more than someone who has never studied the language at all but it's still pretty bad.