A Tale of Two Lanuages

I've been simultaneously studying both French and Flemish (Dutch) for a full 8 weeks now - whew! Balancing the two has been challenging at times, but so far it's gone pretty well, and I plan to continue studying both of them for at least two more months.

Observations so far: Dutch is pretty cool, kind of a cross between English and German. Some of the pronunciations are challenging - for instance, "G" and "CH" are pronounced somewhat like the sound of a hissing cat...an easy sound to make on its own, but not so easy to incorporate into your regular speech pattern. It shares a lot of similarities with English that make it somewhat easy for me to learn, but I have a feeling that it's going to get more complicated as time goes on, particularly when it comes to grammar (that's where the German influence comes in). Oh, and this is kind of funny; one of our German friends described Dutch as sounding "cute" to him, because it resembles a softer, simpler version of German. However one wishes to describe it, I like it!

French - now here's an interesting language. I've finally begun to master the pronunciation, to where I can usually determine how to correctly say a word upon reading it. Learning the grammatical rules is another matter, because while it's not that complicated on the surface, French grammar seems to have even more exceptions than English! There is a huge emphasis on aesthetics, making it a very melodic, pretty language to listen to and speak...on the other hand, that means it tends to favor beauty over consistency, making it a bear to learn! I do like it though, it's just been a little harder than I had expected at the beginning.

I doubt that just one year here will make me fluent in either language, but I'm sure gonna try! That brings me to the internal debate I've been having...I think that I definitely need to continue with French, because it's by far the most spoken language in Brussels and a good one to know for life in general. Should I continue with Dutch however, or focus more on trying to perfect one language rather than becoming a mediocre speaker of both? Another thing to throw into the mix - there are also cheap Spanish courses available through one of the universities here, which would help me refresh some of my rusty knowledge of that language. For those who don't know, I studied Spanish for years in high school and college, but to my regret fell just short of becoming fluent. I've always felt like I left Spanish sort of "unfinished", so this may be a great opportunity to finally reach a level of fluency in that language.

So that's my dilemma, and I really am undecided about what to do! Any opinions or suggestions out there?